Subnautica, Ghosts of the past
by Vesper110
Summary: it has been 5 years since the aurora exploded and the lone survivor recieves a message from another vessel that responded to the Aurora's distress signal and fearing the worst the survivor frantically sends a message to warn the vessel away but it fails and just like the ships before it the ship crash-lands and forces the survivor to stop history repeating itself
1. Chapter 1 Planetfall

Disclaimer: Subnautica is not my game; this story is not canon to the actual Subnautica Story.  
Subnautica is the property of Unknown worlds

Rated M for Mature due to excessive use of language.

Subnautica

 _Ghosts of the Past_

It has been four years since the Alterra corp vessel, the Aurora crash-landed on an unknown planet and life pod 5 was jettisoned with one lone occupant on board. Having survived the Aurora's catastrophic hull failure incident the lone survivor began to search for resources to help him survive on the planet as he waited for the highly unlikely chance of a rescue to be attempted. During this time the Aurora's Dark-matter ion drive containment failed and the crash-site was irradiated in the explosion, a few days later the survivor repaired the containment field and his PDA began to interface with the Aurora's Black-box recording software but due to the highly irradiated air the PDA was suffering from severe interference so the survivor, fed up of things not going well for him, decided to try and repair the containment field in the Aurora. As he began to contemplate how he would repair the containment breaches he gathered resources to make a welder and a radiation suit and after doing that he swam over to the Aurora and made his way to the drive core, while avoiding the hostile creatures in and around the wreckage of the Aurora. Having repaired the dark-matter ion drive containment field the lone survivor returned to his life pod and began to plan his new home but to his dismay the blueprints on his PDA were limited at best, he had no creature comforts, not even a bed yet despite this he managed to rest well and a few hours later had built himself a habitat, it was more spacious than the life pod anyway and he began to hunt for food for his indefinite stay on this planet.

Unknown planet, date unknown

Time 0800hrs

The sun was just rising in the east when the survivor woke up to the sounds of an unknown creature bellowing in the air and said, "well at least it can be used as an alarm clock, so how long has it been now since I crash-landed on this godforsaken rock? Five years? Six years? I can't remember anymore; not since that last message from the Sunbeam trading vessel, I hope it got my warning to evade this planet I don't want anyone else to suffer the fate of the Aurora and Degassi crews. I don't even give a shit if I am alone on this goddamned planet for the rest of my fuckin' life as long as they get home safely. Wait what the fuck is that noise?" As the survivor listened he heard the sound of a ship descending to the planet and his Communications array intercepted communications from someone.

"Captain, a new message has arrived" as he looked at the communications relay its light flashed red and it chimed to which he said "oh god please no! Don't let it be what I think it is!" He played the message

"Attention any survivors of the Aurora, this is the captain of the trading vessel Sunbeam we are here to… wait what the fuck is that light! Oh shit the Sunbeam has been hit! I repeat the sunbeam has been hit! Jettison all life pods right away! All hands abandon ship!" Hearing the commotion the survivor had a flashback of his time of arrival

"Emergency! Hull failure imminent, all personnel abandon ship!" hearing the ship wide announcement in his memory clear as a bell, he remembered himself running down the evacuation corridors to the life pods and slid down the hatch into Life pod 5 and activated it as the Aurora was hit by an unknown energy projectile, as he left the ship the Aurora exploded sending a large shockwave that hit his pod and accelerated its descent, then a bit of debris hit his life pod and everything went wrong, the life pod systems failed and the panel that covered the electronics fell onto the life pod floor, then after another energy pulse hit the pod the panel smacked the survivor in the face rendering him unconscious for three hours as his pod landed in the water, luckily the flotation devices triggered and stopped the pod from capsizing, then as he woke up he saw a fire inside his pod and said "oh shit! This ain't good now where the fuck is my fire extinguisher?! Ah there it is!" he picked it up and decided to extinguish the flames as best as he could and after a while the fire was put out and his PDA activated in emergency mode "Greetings survivor great job not dying to assist you further, you have been issued this personal data assistant…." As the survivor listened to the electronic voice of his PDA he rolled his eyes and said in a very disgruntled tone "Yeah thanks you tactless piece of shit, 'great job not dying', what a fuckin' joke!"

Annoyed at what had happened he threw his PDA on the ground and climbed out of his pod to stare at the smoking Aurora and said "Great what else can go wrong?" Then to piss him off further he PDA spoke up again and said "Attention Seismic readings indicate that a quantum detonation has occurred in the Aurora drive core…" the minute the PDA said that the survivor said "Oh my and my big mouth!" then as soon as the PDA counted down backwards from ten and reached zero the Aurora exploded even more. A soon as the Aurora exploded in his flashback he returned to reality and saw the Sunbeam make planet fall and he screamed out in despair "YOU FUCKING MORONS! I TOLD YOU NOT TO COME HERE! WHY THE FUCK DID YOU NOT LISTEN?" he then grabbed his Seaglide and climbed out of his habitat as he made his way to the crash site of the Sunbeam upset at his failure to prevent another Degassi disaster. When he arrived at the crash-site his Geiger counter went crazy and his PDA said "Warning! High levels of radiation detected, radiation level above tolerable limit, suggest maintaining a range of..." getting even more irate by the PDA he just switched it off and said "No way in HELL am I letting these people suffer the same fate as the Aurora and Degassi." with that he pulled out his laser cutting tool and cut his way into the belly of the Sunbeam saying "I hope to god that there are people alive here, if so then I can help them survive longer here, hey I may even find a special someone to survive with, but my main priority now is finding ANY survivors and keeping them safe, then one day we may find the cause for these energy projectiles and stop them from harming anyone else or maybe even enabling survivors to get off this planet. Well failing that we can all make a fresh start on this planet."

As he entered the sunbeam the survivor was overcome by a sense of sorrow and rage seeing that there was no one alive in the vessel at all, so with a heavy heart he explored what was left of the sunbeam and said "Well, there may not be any survivors around but maybe I can salvage some things from the ship that can assist me in my goal to survive, I do need a few things to strengthen my base," after his long exploration of the Sunbeam the survivor returned to his Habitat and noticed that the light was flashing on the communications array again to which he said "Oh? This may be interesting." he then played the message  
"This is first technician Amythyst Triton of the Sunbeam trading vessel, My life pod has made planetfall and I am stranded seven hundred and fifty meters from my ships crash site, I am injured and my first aid kit fabricator isn't working, neither is my fabricator so please if anyone is out there send me help as soon as possible; my co-ordinates are attached, message repeats" As he listened to the message the survivor shook his head and said "nah, no way is that real, last message that gave me co-ordinates like that led me to an abandoned life pod, no way is she still alive... but on the other hand that last message that was sent to me before this one was already being broadcasted while my array was offline, and since that last message from the sunbeam I hadn't received any other messages... up until now! What is the time stamp in the message... holy shit! That message was broadcasted half an hour ago?" Feeling hope for the first time in five years the survivor set out to find the source of the message and when he got there he saw a life pod similar to his right down to the number on the side and said "Life pod 5? Hmm nah it's gotta be a coincidence, I hope she's okay." With that he climbed into the pod and saw a beautiful young lady with midnight blue hair and multiple lacerations on her body and limbs, as he stared at her he used his modified scanner to check her life signs and they were stable, to which he gently tried to wake her up but to no avail and said "She's alive but she needs medical attention fast, I will take her to my habitat and place her in the infirmary that I built but why I built it though, I have no idea." After that he picked her up and carried her bridal style out of her damaged life pod and made his way back to his habitat where he gently laid the unconscious Amythyst on the infirmary bed and left her to wake up straight after he bound her wounds.

As the hours passed Amythyst showed no signs of waking up so the survivor decided to go and see if she was still alive but no sooner had he entered the infirmary there was an explosion and the lights in the habitat went out to which the base CPU announced "Emergency, Multiple breaches in base hull detected! Activating water expulsion systems, sealing all bulkheads" after hearing the announcement the survivor decided to seal up the infirmary while he went to repair the hull breaches in his base to which he chundered "that is the fourth time now! The fourth fuckin' time! What the hell is causing these hull breaches?!"as he went to the first breach and began to weld it shut the base CPU announced "Attention, unauthorised systems access detected," hearing this the lone survivor sighed and said "goddamn it not now, I must seal these breaches before I find myself sleeping with the fishes... again." after a few hours all hull breaches were sealed and the survivor returned to the infirmary only to find that Amythyst was no longer on the infirmary bed and before he turned around he heard the sound of his stasis rifle charging up then before he could act he was surrounded by a stasis field and could not move to which he said "Ah shit." he then felt a heavy smack on the back of his head and was knocked out. A few minutes later he woke up and found himself tied down to the infirmary bed that originally held Amythyst and as he looked up he found himself staring into a pair of beautiful teal eyes as Amythyst sat there with a bemused look on her face to which she said "well hello there handsome, I wanted to thank you for saving me but first, who the hell are you?! How did you get me out of my pod and into this structurally weakened base of yours and what is your business here?" the survivor didn't reply to which Amythyst said "well at least you didn't take liberties with my unconscious body, I'm thankful for that and I know you haven't because my PDA would have told me, since it is connected to my biometrics just like yours is connected to you so I'll ask you again survivor, who are you?" After an awkward silence the survivor sighed and said in a joking tone "If I'd have known you would be nagging me like an old hag I would've left you in your pod, you are as bad as my PDA when it comes to nagging, but if you must know my name is Richard Scepton and I managed to drag your heavy ass out of your pod using my arms and in regards to what my business here is, well originally it was to stop morons like your captain from coming to this planet and getting shot out of the sky but we all know how that went simply by looking at you."

Hearing Richard being snide to her Amythyst walked over to him, punched him in the nose and said "there is no need to be an asshole! I just want to know what the hell is going on and why the hell I am stranded on this endless ocean with a bitter prick like you." annoyed at Amythyst's reply Richard said in an equally upset tone "Well excuse me for being bitter you bitch; but you would be the same way if you suffered as long as I have on this goddamned rock! It's been five years since I had proper human contact, FIVE FUCKIN' YEARS! So yeah I'm bitter... deal with it!" this argument continued long into the night with neither one giving way until finally something happened to the habitat causing the power to shut down and the CPU announced "Main power offline, base on emergency power, oxygen generation offline" realising that they had a short time before they'd suffocate both Amythyst and Richard put their differences aside and bailed out of the base only to see a massive Reaper Leviathan swimming their way with its jaws wide open...

To be continued...


	2. Chapter 2 Escape!

Chapter 2 Escape!

As the Reaper Leviathan swam towards them, Amythyst stated to get frightened and wrapped her arms around Richard saying "What the hell do we do now? He's that same bastard that damaged my pod when I first landed!" Seeing the fear in Amythyst's eyes Richard sighed and said "well gettin' worked up about it ain't gonna help us now is it? Calm down and we will think of something... Ah I know do you still have that stasis rifle you used to freeze me? Maybe we can use it to freeze him?" looking around Amythyst saw the Stasis rifle floating in the ocean and nodded to which Richard said calmly, "Grab my Seaglide and swim towards the rifle, I will distract 'big Boris' over there while you make a break for it, you do realise though it means that we have to abandon that habitat and find somewhere to build a new one right? But don't worry about that now just get that bloody rifle and shoot Mr big over there." after hearing Richard's idea Amythyst went to ask what would happen to him but stopped when she saw him concentrating on the Leviathan and she said quietly "You stupid dumbass what am I gonna do if you get eaten huh? I don't want to be alone on this planet as long as you have, please just stay alive so we can get better acquainted you dummy." she then did as Richard said as he baited the Reaper Leviathan saying "hey you! Big ugly! Yeah you I'm talkin' to you, hah you think you are so strong well, I am about to whoop your ass! Come at me fathead! Lemme use you as a trophy!" he then pulled out his survival knife and charged head first into the Leviathan's mouth getting himself eaten whole to which he said "Phew you stink worse on the inside! Goddamn it I hope this wasn't a mistake." as she watched him getting eaten Amythyst screamed out in despair at the concept of being the only survivor left and lost her temper to which she grabbed the stasis rifle and charged right at the Reaper Leviathan and screamed "Chew on this you bastard!" with that she shot the Reaper in the face with the stasis rifle and pulled out her knife as she began to hack at the belly of the Reaper Leviathan in an effort to cut Richard out of its stomach while at the same time Richard was cutting his way out from the inside, after a few minutes of hacking and slashing from both Richard and Amythyst, the Reaper Leviathan roared as its stomach split open from the inside spilling a large amount of blood, entrails and Richard out of its body, before it began to convulse and then it died as Richard swam out of its belly saying "Well shit, with the amount of goo that has spilled out of this guy it will only be a matter of time until this place is surrounded by very hungry predators and we become the orderves before the main banquet, so I propose we split from here before we get surrounded by a lot of beasts am I right?" after he finished his sentence Amythyst so overcome with rage and sadness swam right up to Richard and slapped him so hard on the face she sent him flying back in the water to which he said "What the Fuck Amythyst? Why did you..." before he could finish his tirade Amythyst interrupted and screamed at him "You stupid fucking asshole I thought you'd died and left me alone! What is your fucking obsession with fighting and violence anyway don't you know that isn't the answer? I swear if you do some stupid shit like this again I will not rescue your foolish ass nor will I mourn your death, in fact I would never forgive you if you die on me!"

Seeing Amythyst scream at him in rage Richard went to scream back but stopped when he saw her crying before she threw her arms around him and held him close as she sobbed into his chest to which he went to comfort her but hesitated briefly before finally giving her a hug and said "I never realised how much this affected you but why? Why are you so bent out of shape out of something so minor like this?" to which Amythyst looked at him through teary eyes and said "Don't you get it yet? This isn't something minor you moron, you could have been Reaper chow then who would I talk to? The CPU of the habitat? My PDA? Or even the local fuckin' fish? No way, that is not something minor. ever since my ship entered this backwards galaxy I have been alone I mean, I had a relationship with someone on board the sunbeam once, but he was a jealous and obsessive prick, even if I stood next to my best and closest friend Zacchary Briar he'd stare at me and him before shouting his mouth off at us and threatening Zack's life, this was why I split up with him and that was three years ago. Now look what happens, two years later I find that my ship has received a distress signal from your ship and decides to rescue your sorry asses but gets shot down out of the fucking sky and what happens? During the planetfall of my ship and it's hull failure my jealous ex murders my close friend right in front of my eyes and attacks me before we get to the life pods, hence why I have these horrible cuts and scars all over my body. Then as my ship explodes he dies and gets away with what he had done and what happened to me? I survive in my Life pod with the harsh and visceral memories of my best friend getting killed in front of me, slaughtered like a wild animal while I was unable to do anything about it due to my injuries, then as my lifepod falls through the atmosphere of this planet, I get knocked unconscious by a loose fucking panel and nearly cooked by a fire in my pod interior and once again I find myself alone and on the fucking bed in a stranger's unknown base, do you know what that feels like? I don't want to be alone anymore, this is why I haven't killed you yet and yes I would kill you if the situation depended upon it but it doesn't, right now we need each other to survive so of course I am going to get very upset when you do stupid fuckin' things like going toe to toe with a Reaper Leviathan and getting your arrogant and backwards ass eaten!"

Seeing Amythyst grill him made Richard smile, it had been far too long since he had any human contact and even though she was having a go at him while threatening his life out of pure concern for his wellbeing, he felt happy once again and after Amythyst ranted at him for a while he held her tightly and said "I'm sorry Amythyst, it won't happen again and I will never leave you to fend for yourself, I will always do what I can to help you but there is one condition, Stop being a naggy old bag and loosen up ok?" After he said that Amythyst digged him in the ribs and said "I'll have you know Mr Richard Scepton that I am only two years younger than you, I'm 23 and you are 25 so the old bag is you, you get me handsome?" she then dried her eyes and gave him a playful kiss on the cheek to which he said "Well it looks like things are gonna change and y'know what, I'm gonna enjoy it." With that both Richard and Amythyst took hold of the Seaglide and surfaced for air before starting their search for a new place to build a home.

After swimming around for a few hours and frequently replacing the batteries of the Seaglide they finally found a spot in the grassy plateaus and began to build a new habitat, as they built it up they had multiple hull breaches to which Amythyst said "Okay I have to ask, what was your position on the Aurora because just like your old base, this one is structurally unsound; you need to reinforce the hull wherever you can even if it looks ugly." to which Richard said in an embarrassed tone "well embarrassingly enough I only managed to get to technician third class but hey at least I can build even though the habitat hull is weak," Looking at Richard, Amythyst rolled her eyes and sighed before saying in a fed up tone "Look, if we are to survive here under the water our habitat needs to be strong and secure, with the hull frequently breaching it is only a matter of time before the habitat caves in and we either get suffocated or crushed, so we need to make sure that doesn't happen and before you ask me anything, my rank is or rather it was first technician on board the Sunbeam so essentially I am your superior but don't worry, I'm not one to pull rank on anyone but I have to do it just this once to ensure our survival, so I am ordering you as a first technician, to reinforce our habitat in any way possible."  
shortly after she told him to reinforce the hull Richard managed to increase the hull integrity of the habitat by 120% and they continued to build their new home, after several minutes of building their new home was built and they moved into the new habitat after they built a nuclear reactor to power the habitat from a reinforced room but it was unpowered so Richard said "Well, it looks like we have a power source but no fuel to power it so who is going out there to collect the fuel necessary to power up our base?" To which Amythyst said "Well since you have been on this planet longer than me it would be a prudent course of action to send you out for the fuel because you probably know all the best places to attain materials, hey maybe you can show me around the place? I'd like that.

After their discussion, both Richard and Amythyst went to leave the habitat to which Richard said "Oh wait, I need to do something before we leave, I need to access the Habitat CPU so I can register you as an authorised inhabitant of our habitat but to do that I need some of your biological data so it can be stored on file but is that okay with you Ms technician?" After Richard asked her the question Amythyst paused for a moment before smiling and saying  
"I'm fine by that but I am kinda concerned at what you will find," confused at what Amythyst said Richard looked into her teal eyes and said in a puzzled tone "Amythyst, what are you talking about?" to which Amythyst said "Richard, I'm not human, I'm actually..." before she could finish her sentence Richard silenced her and said "no matter what you are we are still friends even though you nag me a lot so don't worry about it."

To be continued...


	3. Chapter 3 Relationship

Chapter 3 Relationship

After silencing Amythyst, Richard took her into a room that he had just constructed and said "Look Amythyst from what I can tell you are human, you don't have any extra limbs, nor do you have an extra head or fins; from head to toe you look human to me so what are you talking about?" Amythyst sighed and looked into Richards eyes before saying "When I was in my mother's womb, I was probed, prodded and stabbed throughout the whole gestation period leading to my birth. I know this because I downloaded the data from the colony mainframe before I ran away to join the Alterra corp as a crewman on the sunbeam. You see as soon as I was born I was taken away from my mother who had died in childbirth and experimented on all through my life, then finally on my sixteenth birthday I was operated on by a load of scientists who cut me open and implanted several cybernetic enhancements into my body against my will and what did my father do? Jack shit! He just left on his ship and I was stranded on the colony where I was constantly butchered, stabbed and probed, turning me into what I am now, but the worst thing is that once the cybernetic implantation was complete they began to mess with my genetic structure and made me into this freak that stands before you and I hate it!"

Thoughtfully listening to Amythyst as she vented her anger he gently placed his hand across her feminine shoulders and said "Amythyst, I think it is best if you stop now, otherwise it could upset you even worse the more you talk about it, so why not wrap it up and give me the summary of why you think you are not human and what this was meant to achieve?" feeling Richard's gentle touch across her shoulders Amythyst calmed down and took a deep breath before saying "What I am trying to tell you is that my body has been modified to make babies, they have turned my body into a birthing machine so I can, to quote the bastards who did this to me, 'help secure the future of humanity on the frontiers of space', what a joke! I didn't want to become like this, I was happy being a normal human girl so why the fuck did they choose me?" she then broke down in tears to which Richard comforted her and said "But Amythyst you still can lead a normal life, I'm not going to force you to do things that you find distasteful am I? I'll tell you what, you have this room here and make it how you want it then you will have your own bedroom to sleep in just like I do, I'm not going to make you sleep on the cold floor of this habitat so sort out your room how you want it using any of the materials we have stockpiled and I will see you tomorrow." With that Richard gave her a friendly hug and left her to sort out her own bedroom as he slept.

Next morning the bellowing of a Reaper Leviathan permeated the morning air and he said in an angry tone "Oh for fuck sake! I am really starting to get sick of that noisy bastard, maybe I should go and silence him once and for all?" he then paused and looked at the newly constructed bedroom that Amythyst inhabited and said "No, I can't do that to her, not after what she has told me, right now my main concern is to try and keep her happy by making her feel like she mattered to someone. If I go out there now and get eaten alive how will she cope? Given her last performance when I last went toe to toe with one of the big guys it really upset and scared her, so I guess I'm just gonna have to live with it... For now." as soon as he finished his monologue he climbed out of bed and cleaned himself up before getting dressed in his radiation suit and headed into the workshop of the base, where he modified his suit and his equipment, as he upgraded his oxygen tank he heard a polite knock on the bulkhead door and said "Come on in Amythyst, what can I do for you?" As the bulkhead door opened a very well rested looking Amythyst walked in and said "good morning Richard, how did you sleep?" To which Richard just sighed and said "Well to tell you the truth Amythyst, I haven't slept well at all with Mr big over there bellowing at the top of his voice, I just wish that once, just once that I could actually have a restful night's sleep, how can you manage to ignore bigmouth over there?" To which Amythyst just smiled and said  
"I may have been enhanced against my will by those bastards, but it has a few good points about it, like being able to isolate the sounds of the local wildlife and focus only on the sounds of the one you care about, yeah I'm referring to the instincts that have been enhanced within me as a result of this backwards and twisted project."

After what she said, Amythyst walked over to the fully kitted out Richard and gave him a hug saying, "Y'know Richard for someone who acts like he doesn't give a shit about others but himself, you really have a kind touch and are more approachable than most people I know, hell you even complimented me and made me feel like I mattered to someone when you gave me a room of my own to sleep in, so I have to ask would you consider being in a relationship with me? I mean don't get the wrong idea, I'm just speaking hypothetically here but if you had the choice would you?" As Richard looked at Amythyst he saw her blush bright red as she asked about the relationship and he said "like I told you last night, it is up to you what you do because I won't be the one who dictates your life to you, any choices you make are yours and I have no say in them so it is up to you, would you like to be in a relationship with me? Is that what you are asking?" Amythyst went all shy and cuddled up to him before saying "yes I would like to be in a relationship with you but given what I am, could you..." before she could finish her sentence Richard kissed her on the lips and hugged her before saying in a kind tone "don't be stupid Amythyst, of course I accept you for who you are; I'm not some shallow heartless prick that only goes for a woman based on how she looks, for me personality is much more important than curves or the size of their breasts, not that you aren't stacked I mean you do look really hot but I am more drawn to your personality than anything else so okay I will go steady with you, that is if it is what you want."

As soon as Richard said that Amythyst visibly perked up a bit and pulled Richard closer to her body so her chest pressed against his and she said in a very halated tone "That's all I ever wanted in my life, to be in a relationship with someone who has a kind heart, you have made me the happiest girl on this planet right now, Thank you!" with those words she kissed Richard on the lips and snuggled up to him as he held her close to which he said "well now that we have sorted out this place why don't we go and get some food? So what do you say Amythyst, do you want to come with me to fish?" To which Amythyst paused and said in a polite tone "No, not today Richard, there is something I want to do but I need to use some gold and titanium for it and since it is your habitat I'd like to ask your permission to use some resources so can I?" Richard sighed and said "It's not just my habitat anymore Amythyst it is also yours, we are a couple now so what's mine is yours and all I ask is that you replace what you use," this made Amythyst happier and she said "Well if that's the case I was wondering if before you do anything else could you get me some creepvine samples? I would like to make some clothes to wear other than these wetsuits that we have and as for the metals I use, what I'm using them for is a surprise and I hope you like it, if not it doesn't matter I will still do it," Richard nodded and smiled before saying in a friendly tone "That's the spirit Amythyst, remember only you can decide what you do and as for your creepvine samples, sure! I will get you as much as I can so I will see you in a few hours maybe?" Amythyst nodded and they both kissed each other before Richard left the Habitat to get the supplies that Amythyst requested.

Shortly after Richard left the habitat Amythyst went into her bedroom and opened up her PDA and said "Hmm I wonder if I still have the blueprints for the Jewellery on this thing," and as she scanned through the PDA she saw what she was looking for and decided to craft it "Ah yes a few navel rings that's what I'm looking for so what do I need for them? Oh yes I see titanium and gold, what about the chains? Well for a basic chain I just need three gold so let me see what we have," as she opened the storage she saw what they had and said "Perfect! I have enough for three navel rings and three belly chains, I hope Richard likes me wearing them, but if he doesn't I don't care; I have wanted to do this since I was eleven years old." With that she crafted the jewellery and pierced herself before attaching the chains to the navel rings, she then smiled as the rings went in and she cleaned herself up. After her shower Amythyst started making some revealing clothes to wear with the creepvine samples they already had and once she got enough together she made a bikini and sarong to which she said "Well that's all finished now so what shall I do? Oh yeah I can tidy around this pigsty ready for when Richard gets back."  
A few hours later Richard returned with a lot of resources including a few diamonds to which he said "well at least I can make Amythyst a diamond ring as a gift now but do I have the blueprints for one?" he looked through his PDA and was disappointed to find that he had no jewellery blueprints of any kind to which he said "Goddamnit, I wanted to make something special for her birthday that comes up in a few weeks according to the biodata on the CPU, she'll be twenty-four and shortly after that I'll be twenty-six, man time sure does fly when you are having..." before he finished the Reaper Leviathan bellowed again to which Richard shouted out "Shut the fuck up flipper! I'm trying to think!" Hearing Richard shout, Amythyst became happy again and began to bandage up her piercings before sliding into her wetsuit and dashing out to meet him, as soon as they saw each other they both locked each other in a warm loving embrace to which Amythyst said in a seductive tone "What took ya so long handsome? Did you decide to fight a boneshark on the way back or what?" after hearing Amythyst say that Richard burst out laughing and gave her a tight squeeze before saying "my, my, my, aren't we feeling perky today?" before giving her a kiss to which she said "Well I have a reason to be perky today, in a few weeks it's my birthday and this time I'm not on my own for it and with me being the way I am right now, being alone on my birthday just really broke my heart and thanks to you I have someone to celebrate my birthday with, as I am no longer alone and I have you to thank for it." hearing Amythyst say what she did Richard patted her backside playfully and said "Well now didn't I tell you that I'd look after you? Anyway I got the supplies we needed including some extra so erm, what did you want to use the metal for?" Amythyst just smiled and placed Richard's arm around her slim waist and said "that is a surprise for later, right now we need to eat, so let's have a decent meal shall we and we can talk more," Richard just nodded and they both headed into the kitchen and dining area where Amythyst began to hum a beautiful tune as she made their dinner.

A few hours later they finished their meal and began to plan their future on the planet to which Richard said "Oh yeah about that, as I was exploring the island closest to the Aurora I detected a strange energy signature that matched the energy that hit our ships and as I drew closer I saw what looked like some kind of energy cannon with some weird-ass life-form guarding it so I kept my distance but I did get some snapshots and recordings of both the cannon and the entity, you wanna have a look?" Amythyst nodded and when she saw the picture of the life-form she gasped in horror and said "What the fuck is that thing? It looks scary!" and as soon as she said that the communications hub activated again "Captain a new message has arrived" and once again the array chimed and Richard said "well we may be having some more company soon so let's see what this message is," with that he played the message

"This is Sapphire Triton of the Alterra vessel Sunbeam, my lifepod has entered this planet's atmosphere and is descending at an astronomical rate, my flotation devices have not deployed and I am about to hit the water in sixty seconds, please help me! My co-ordinates are attached and my estimated touchdown time is t-minus thirty seconds please hurry!" Then there was static to which Richard looked at Amythyst and said "Well shall we go and help her? my scans show that she will be landing about one hundred and twenty meters off the port side of the Aurora" to which Amythyst nodded frantically and said "Of course we need to save her because she is my little sister, luckily she escaped the fate that has befallen me so she is just a normal human girl that cannot survive very long without help so we must save her," Richard nodded and equipped his fully recharged stasis rifle, his Fully recharged Seaglide and a fully charged repulsion cannon on his way out to which Amythyst gave him a loving kiss and said "Please be careful, look after yourself and bring my little sister back safe!" and with that Richard set off to rescue the new survivor that had just crash-landed on the planet

To Be Continued...


	4. Chapter 4 Triage

Chapter 4: Triage

After they set off to save the newbie Amythyst started to feel a little bit guilty, she hadn't told the man she loved the whole truth about her, yes she told him of the experiments done on her but she didn't tell him what she actually was and it started to drive her crazy so she said to herself so only she could hear it "I can't tell Richard what I really am or can I? I am worried at how he would take it, then again how would a human that has had no human contact for five nearly six years react if he was told that the woman who loves him is a vampire? Because technically I am not human, damn it I've come this far so why can't I tell him the truth?" as she began to worry she tensed up and Richard felt it to which he said "hey nagatha, why are you so tense?" to which Amythyst just smiled and shook her head before saying in a playful voice "hey chief running mouth can it will you? I'm just nervous that's all, I haven't seen my sister in a long time and I didn't even know that she was on the same ship as me, oh by the way she is my little sister and the last picture I got of her was after she got pierced on her fourteenth birthday, we parted ways at a young age. Well I say she is my little sister but she is actually my half-sister and I am glad that she's alright so let's not talk until we get to her okay?" Richard rolled his eyes and sighed before nodding in silence. With that, they both put their arms around each other's waist and took hold of the Seaglide when they left the habitat. After searching for hours they returned home to which Richard said "where is her life pod, it's nowhere to be found, oh I know, I'll use my scanner room to find the pod," with that as an upset Amythyst went to bed, Richard put the Seaglide on charge he then headed to his scanner room and started to search for Sapphire's life pod.

8 hours later

After scanning the surrounding area for a while not finding anything, Richard increased the range and speed of the scanner room until finally he found the pod and smiled before saying "Heh, I've found it but man is it far away, more of a reason to use my Shadowhound again," having said that, Richard headed to his Seamoth dock and unsealed the bulkhead saying "and I thought my exploratory days were over." He then launched his minisub and left in the dark of night turning off his Seamoth lights in order to avoid hostile local fauna that would turn him into their dinner. As he approached the lifepod he brought up his PDA it said "Low level bioreadings detected, suggest a cautious approach." Hearing that he reduced the speed of his Seamoth and when he got to the lifepod he climbed in cautiously, when he got into the pod it was like the set of a horror movie with blood all over the walls and floor, worried about his safety he placed his hand on his survival knife and cautiously looked around. Satisfied that he was safe he got out his modified scanner and looked around for the occupant of the pod, it was then he noticed a beautiful young lady laying slumped against the wall of the lifepod with a panel embedded deep within her abdomen. Worried about this young lady's life, he scanned her and saw that she was in critical condition so he decided to give her a shot of adrenaline in the heart to keep her alive, before returning to Amythyst with the grim news. It took him 3 hours to get back to the habitat with his Seamoth as it had very low energy from lack of use, the power cell had begun to decay so he decided that once he got home he'd replace it and that is what he did, after he replaced the power cell he headed to his room as the base CPU announced his return making Amythyst rush out to meet him with hope in her heart and this made it worse for Richard, he could see how hopeful she was and it killed him inside. As he escorted Amythyst to her room he let out a sad sigh to which Amythyst said "what's wrong Richard, is Sapphire okay?" to which Richard said "Amythyst you may want to sit down," as Amythyst sat down she began to tremble to which Richard continued, "look there is no easy way for me to say this but your sister Sapphire has been fatally wounded, the panel that normally covers the lifepod systems had come loose in the explosion of the sunbeam and your sister has been impaled through the stomach by it; Her life signs are critical but luckily I have stabilised her just long enough for me to come back and get a few supplies to help her. Now I am going to need a lot of bandages, a lot of antibiotics, tonnes and tonnes of gauze, lots of painkillers and finally a medical suit to put her in. my Seamoth can hold everything so I will just make those supplies with our fabricator and then I will do what I can to help Sapphire, but you need to stay here and sit tight while I do what I can, I will be making a temporary medical base near her life pod because my Seamoth is a one person vehicle, so I won't be returning anytime soon however, I will be in touch via the communications array and I promise that I will bring Sapphire back to you alive." with those words he gave Amythyst a comforting hug before setting off to save Sapphire

4 hours later: Sapphire's lifepod

As Richard drew close to the pod he could hear a lot of Bonesharks screeching in the distance with the deep undertone of the Reaper Leviathan's roar as he climbed out of his Seamoth taking the supplies out of the storage compartments and began to work on the fatally wounded Sapphire, he first started by scanning her once again to see if she was still alive and as he drew close to her in an effort to check her pulse he could hear her breathing heavily, which made him breathe a sigh of relief before he _quietly_ said to himself, "you are one tough lady Sapphire, I am surprised that you responded well to the adrenaline, but now I'm gonna have to treat your wounds here just enough for me to be able to transfer you to the medical base below." He then took the panel and pulled it out of her stomach causing blood to spray everywhere to which he quickly put pressure on the wound to reduce the bleeding, he then took a load of gauze and placed it over her injury, he then followed with a dressing and finally a load of bandages to bind her wound just enough to stop her for bleeding out, he then intraveniously administered the antibiotics to kill any infection and made sure she was fit enough to be moved which she was, so he took her down to the medical base and laid her on the infirmary bed before placing a heart monitor over her chest and locked it into place before inserting an IV into her arm to administer the nutrients she needed to recover. as he watched the heart monitor scan Sapphire he sighed and said to himself "This poor girl, how the hell has she survived this long? Could she have been modified just like Amythyst has? Well i'm not going to check, not without her permission, I guess I am gonna have to observe her for a while." then just like that he left the infirmary and entered the observation room and just watched while she recovered as he occasionally checked his PDA to view the progress of her recovery, after watching Sapphire for a few hours, Richard decided to send a message to Amythyst about Sapphire's recovery progress. "Amythyst this is Richard, I have stabilised your sister and she seems to be responding well to treatment but still, she is in a bad way; she is stable, however I don't think she will recover anytime soon so I will be staying here and keeping an eye on her. My rough estimate is that she will return to consciousness in about ten days so she may be up and about on your birthday, oh and regarding that, a few days after you arrived here I looked for some jewellery blueprints in my PDA and I found one a few days ago so if you go into my room and check my shelving you should see a little box giftwrapped and addressed to you, open it and consider it an early birthday gift from me, happy birthday Amythyst and don't you worry about Sapphire, she will be fine I promise." hearing the message Amythyst did as Richard said and when she opened the box she found a beautiful diamond ring inside it, then as she picked it up she cried tears of joy, for the first time in her life, she felt like someone cared, meanwhile back at the medical base Richard paid close attention to Sapphire's vital signs however he started to get really sleepy and finally, he just blacked out and fell asleep in his chair.  
As he slept Richard's mind was assaulted by another Aurora flashback that lead up to the destruction of it

*Alarm bells ringing*  
"ATTENTION! ATTENTION! UNKNOWN ENERGY MASS ON A COLLISON COURSE WITH AURORA HULL! ALL HANDS BEGIN EVACUATION" As the bells rang out Richard found himself running from the captains office, he had just been promoted to third technician and was part of the phasegate installation team, with his knowledge of precursor technology he was one of the most important members of the team, he remembered his time that he spent looking at salvaged precursor technology in the museum on his own planet and could create a working small scale model of a precursor artefact, he was noticed by the captain of the Aurora when he visited Richard's university to give a lecture on the Phasegate programme that was in the development stages and it was Richard who asked most of the questions, impressed with his eagerness to learn the captain invited him to join the Aurora crew after he graduated to which Richard eagerly accepted, fast forward three years to Richard's graduation where he graduated with honours at the top of his class for an amazing dissertation on the precursor civilisation, the captain read it and gave Richard the position of third technician. Now on board the Aurora, Richard felt accomplished but there was a doubt in his mind about his commission, something felt off and it gave him a bad feeling. He told the captain who foolishly dismissed it as pre-mission jitters and told Richard to relax and enjoy the flight, but time and time again Richard addressed the issue with the captain who just nodded and smiled not paying attention at all, the fourteenth time Richard went to address this issue with the captain he overheard the main communications relay receiving a distress signal from the Degassi and then it hit him, when he heard the description of the energy projectile he immediately knew that it was precursor technology that had fired upon the Degassi and they were heading right for it! True to his instinct as they approached the last known position of the Degassi they were also fired upon and hit; causing them to go down on the planet. As the Aurora crash landed in his flashback once again he woke up with a start to see a frightened Sapphire banging on the door of the infirmary shouting out "Help! Someone please help me, get me out of here! I HATE being closed in! Please let me out of here!" With that Richard woke up and sprinted down to the infirmary door and opened it only to be jumped at by Sapphire who was sobbing uncontrollably, then after a while she got angry and began to hit Richard as hard as she could, but being weak due to her wounds she didn't do much damage to him and ended up collapsing into his arms as she breathed heavily, to which Richard escorted her to an open room where she could recover.

As Sapphire recovered Richard looked at the digital calendar and saw that only two days had passed since he treated Sapphire's wounds and already she was up and about, this amazed him and he tried to use logic to come to a conclusion on how she recovered so fast but in the end he had no clue and said to himself "now I KNOW that she is enhanced; no one can recover from wounds like hers as fast as she did, not even I recover that fast so who the fuck is she really and how the hell are both Sapphire and Amythyst sisters? They look completely different from each other." As he tried to focus he found a pair of piercing purple eyes staring at him angrilly to which Sapphire said "Okay who the hell are you and why the fuck does my stomach hurt so bad? Have you done something to me? Well you can talk can't you?! So FUCKIN ANSWER ME!" Stunned at Sapphire's words Richard said nothing to which Sapphire said "Oh for fucks sake," before pulling out her PDA which told her everything that happened to which she felt bad for being rude to Richard who just grinned at her and said "Well now I KNOW you and Amythyst are related; even if you are her half-sister," to which Sapphire replied by saying "what the fuck are you talking about? You don't know me, I am NOT Amythyst's half-sister you buffoon! I am her full-blooded sister and while we are at it, how the hell do you know my sister? She's been dead for years you sick bastard! Are you trying to hurt me?" after hearing Sapphire's rant Richard grew confused, how the hell was Sapphire Amythyst's full-blooded sister? According to Amythyst her mother died in childbirth after she was born so how?

To Be Continued...


	5. Chapter 5 Memories

Note:

 _Before you read any further this is where the rating of this story gets changed from Teen to mature due to foul language, also there is a chance that there will be adult situations and sensitive issues addressed in this chapter; regarding that, there are no graphical descriptions of intimacy in this story and there never will be however, there will be nudity bu_ t **NO INTIMACY** _I repeat_ ; **NO INTIMACY** _So if you just signed up to read "LEMONS" then this story i_ s **NOT** _for you._

 _I will_ **NEVER** _include lemons in this story or any of my others that I may write as they go against my principles of tasteful writing, yes there is violence, yes there is aggression and YES there is foul language but aside from that; this story is pretty tame from the ones that I have read on this site that have been written by others in the past so best regards and happy reading!_

Vesper110

* * *

Chapter 5: Memories

As Richard tried to figure out how Sapphire was related to Amythyst he went all silent, he then looked at the DNA profile of Sapphire on his scanner and saw that what she said was true, she WAS Amythyst's real sister and she was angry at him to which he said, "Well Amythyst told me that her mother died shortly after she was born so I actually doubt what you say, even if my scanner tells me otherwise so I need to know how this can be true," Sapphire got angrier and said "I do NOT have to fucking tell you anything about my family because it is none of your business and stop using my sister's name so casually! She is far more important than you will ever be," this pissed Richard of so much he snapped at her and shouted, "IS THAT ANY FUCKIN' WAY TO TALK TO SOMEONE WHO COULD JUST AS EASILY HAVE LEFT YOU TO DIE OUT HERE!? I SAVED YOUR UNGRATEFUL ASS INSTEAD OF LETTING YOU DIE, YOU LITTLE SHIT! HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO ME WITH SUCH DISRESPECT?" He then just stormed off to cool down to which Sapphire poked her tongue out at him to which Richard just turned his back on her and took a deep breath before saying, "Look here Ms Triton, I am not the enemy here I do not deserve your bad attitude, pray tell me what I have done to deserve such shit treatment from a stuck up cow like you? All I did was save your life and that is all I wanted to do but right now because of your petulant behaviour I am regretting my decision to save you, do you want to know a secret? If it were up to me the minute you opened your foul mouth and insulted me I would have shoved you OUT of this habitat, INTO the jaws of A Reaper Leviathan and OUT of my life," to which Sapphire said in a nervous "Th...Then why didn't you?" Richard then looked at her with hatred before changing his expression to mildly perturbed and from mildly perturbed to sorrowful before saying in a sad tone "Because Amythyst wouldn't want it and neither would Crystal." He then turned around sadly and walked off before sitting down in the observation room and locking himself in before pulling out his PDA and looking at his pictures as he flashed back to the moment he became bitter.

"Emergency! Hull failure imminent, all personnel abandon ship!" once again he flashed back to the moment the Aurora was hit by the precursor weapon and he was already carrying a heavily pregnant Crystal to the escape pods only to have her torn out of his arms by the first explosion, he ran over to her and helped her up to which she said "Richard sweetheart I can't go on; I can barely move like this and I will only end up slowing you down, killing all three of us. You'll have to go without me and save yourself," Richard looked at Crystal who was crying to which he said "No crystal we can make it just the three of us! I'm not going anywhere without you!" to which Crystal just hugged him gently while saying "It's too late for us, too late for me so please, if you truly love me then the best thing you can do is survive and not forget about us, "after she said that Richard once again tried to get her to follow but she said in a slightly commanding voice "Look Honey, I don't normally pull rank in situations like this but here I will HAVE make an exception; Richard I ORDER YOU, as your superior, to get your handsome ass to those lifepods and abandon this hunk of titanium! NO ARGUMENTS, NO BUTS! JUST MOVE IT!" Richard tried once again to help her to which she just picked him up, gave him a kiss and threw him into the evacuation corridor before the bulkhead doors closed and as they did Richard cried out Crystal's name and began to bang on the bulkhead door, before hearing her scream as a load of support beams 'supposedly' fell on her. Fearing that she was dead Richard carried on to the lifepods with tears in his eyes; he loved Crystal and he was happy that she was expecting their first child but to have her and their unborn child taken away from him tore his heart in two. As his pod released he screamed out "It's not fair! It's not FUCKING FAIR! Why her? Why not me?!" then finally the Aurora's hull failed and then he blacked out.

3 hours later

After his flashback he heard Sapphire politely knocking on the door saying "Excuse me, hey are you in here? Please let me in, I'm sorry for being rude, I... I was just scared that's all." Still pissed off at her, he just said bluntly "Look bitch, will you just piss off for a while and leave me alone. After the bullshit you just pulled on me I don't wish to see you, so go on, go play with the Bonesharks and Ampeels; and leave me in peace!" Saddened at this Sapphire just walked back into the recovery room that Richard constructed for her so she didn't feel trapped and curled up in the corner, before bursting into tears as she said "well done Sapphire you stupid idiot, now he hates you! Why was I so fuckin' rude to him?!" she began to sob bitterly to which Richard heard her and left the observation room saying "Look Sapphire I can understand your feelings but having someone be hostile to you, for no fuckin' reason isn't very nice is it? Dry your eyes and tell me, Why were you such a bitch?" Sapphire paused for a moment and thought before saying "well judging from the way you looked surprised when I was up and about after a mere 2 days you have heard of project Eden frontier right?" Richard looked at her and said "What is project Eden frontier when it's at home?" Seeing how puzzled Richard was, Sapphire dried her eyes that were all red and puffy from crying and said "Project Eden frontier was one of Alterra corps secret side projects, or rather; I think it was Alterra corp but I don't know, either way it was bad. You see, with humanity colonising space they needed to evolve us so they chose several women, women with a high fertility rate and who were stable when it was y'know, that time every woman goes through? Well no one is more fertile than Vampires, I am one and my sister was erm... IS one that is if she is truly alive and not dead even our mother was a Vampire but she foolishly fell in love with our father and when he found out what she was he sent her to the labs as a 'volunteer' now my mother being the soft hearted and loving woman that she was agreed with this 'volunteering' and because she loved my father so much he used her as a fucking guinea pig! Sent her into the Alterra labs where she was poked, prodded and stabbed with an assortment of needles, she endured it because of our father lying through his teeth! If I EVER SEE HIM again..." as she said that she clenched her fist, her eyes began to glow red and finally some form of energy erupted from her and she screamed "I'M GONNA KNOCK HIS TEETH IN AND RIP HIM APART!" She then smashed down on the Habitat floor, causing a hull-breach to which Richard face-palmed and rolled his eyes and said "Well I always thought you girls were different but Jesus Sapphire, look what ya did! if I don't fix those breaches we will be swimming with the fishes, and since it was you that caused these hull breaches, you are gonna help me seal them; that is unless you want to sleep in a bathtub," to which Sapphire, stunned at the way he was acting after learning hers and Amythyst's secret said "Wait are you not gonna y'know, try to kill me?" Richard just looked at her and said "nope" before resuming his welding to which Sapphire asked him "even if you know I am a vampire, you're just gonna let me live?" Richard sighed before saying "Yep, and before you ask any more questions I will tell you what I told Amythyst; I will never just leave you by yourself to die, regardless of who or what you are that isn't important right now... what IS important is that my feet are getting all wet and soggy; and if you do not help me seal these breaches, I will use you as a flotation device! So grab that welder and GET WELDING... please?" Stunned into a brief silence at what Richard just said she once again put her tongue out at him to which Richard chuckled a sad chuckle and said, "Y'know for a Vampire, you are kinda cute and funny but please, don't do that again... it brings back some sad memories, and before you ask anything else, I will tell you once we are safe okay? Now please if you would not mind, could you weld those last three breaches near you and once the habitat drains all of the water it has taken in, we will talk." with that Sapphire sighed and did as she was told.

As soon as the last breach was sealed the Habitat CPU announced "hull integrity restored, draining systems initiated," then there was a mechanical whirring as the pumps droned into life while the water drained from the habitat slowly, as Richard stared at Sapphire with his hands on his hips before smiling at her and shaking his head before saying to her in a playful tone, "You cute ditz..." making her blush bright red as she shouted "Asshole!" they then laughed and stared out of the habitat window at the sun setting on the horizon just above the smouldering Aurora.  
A few hours later, Sapphire felt unwell and said "Richard, I... I feel a little bit iffy; do you have anything that can help me?" Richard just stared at her and rolled his eyes before saying "Of course you are gonna feel a bit iffy, you just had your stomach perforated by a piece of metal, I mean yeah I have stemmed the bleeding and done some disinfecting of your wounds but for the treatment to be successful you are going to need a med-suit and thankfully I have one ready-made and I will give it to you so you can get changed, here." he then handed the suit to Sapphire who hesitated to accept it to which Richard said "Oh okay fair enough, I will let you sleep on it because I feel a bit sleepy and will be going to sleep soon, good night Sapphire." with that Richard sighed and headed into his room before climbing onto his bed and falling asleep.

A Bit Later...

After falling asleep for a couple of hours Richard woke up and felt something next to him as he looked over to his right he saw Sapphire sleeping in the bed with him trembling and crying in her sleep as she had a flashback of how her life was destroyed,  
it was a cold day on the planet that had previously been colonised by humans and Sapphire opened her young eyes to find herself in some sort of suspension tube naked; as scientists poked her and prodded her with remote tools causing her pain as she cried out, "No please, stop this! I don't deserve this kind of treatment I'm just like you! Please STOP IT!" as she screamed the lights shut down and the klaxons where going off as she could hear the reactor grinding to a halt then exploding "EMERGENCY, REACTOR CONTAINMENT FAILURE! REACTOR CONTAINMENT FAILURE! LOCKING DOWN ALL LABS AND EVACUATING ALL PERSONNEL! THERE HAS BEEN A REACTOR CONTAINMENT FAILURE!"

Still bleeding and feeling sick Sapphire punched herself out of the containment tube cutting her hands to ribbons to which she said in an angry tone "I have had it with these experiments! My body feels so sore, why? Why do people treat me like some weird science project? Wait what does my PDA say?"  
"Scanning subject... done!  
\- Name: Sapphire Triton  
\- Age: Unknown  
\- Gender: Female  
\- Status:  
Subject contains multiple enhancements both Cybernetic and Genetic,  
\- Notes: part of Project Eden Frontier.  
\- Project Goals CLASSIFIED"

Seeing all of this on her PDA Sapphire got really angry and upset before throwing her PDA across the room, smashing it against the far wall, but to her surprise the PDA did not break; as the Klaxons continued blaring Sapphire grabbed some clothes off a dead scientist and got dressed in them before escaping the lab overhearing a conversation between some scientists that survived "I cannot believe it! Subject Alpha two seven six has completely terminated the research team, how the hell could she do such a thing?" to which the other scientist said "Well let us be frank shall we? Our people probed her, cut into her, forced things into her body without her permission and then sealed her up in a tube from her recent birthday; No wonder she is a bit pissed off." to which the third scientist said "But that is beside the point, the genes that we spliced into her should have rendered her harmless but obviously something went wrong with YOUR security measures!" To which the first scientist replied "Listen to me you fucking moron, our genetic research should not have caused this we spliced inert precursor DNA into her and it should have remained inert but something you idiots did awakened the dormant DNA within her and now we got a foothold situation in this base!" The second scientist paused for a second and said "As far as she is concerned she is a Vampire, we want her to think that even if it isn't the truth, after we terminated her mother after she outlived her usefulness something awakened within her and this was BEFORE we spliced the precursor DNA into her but no results were yielded and as a result I feel further observation is re..." Before the scientist could finish her sentence Sapphire let out a very loud scream and smashed the door off its hinges crushing one of the scientists to death to which the other two ran away after shooting her with a stasis rifle, they then sent in a load of muscular scientists to restrain her to which she let out an unearthly shriek and killed two of the six scientists trying to restrain her, before one of them knocked her out with tranquilisers, then it went from bad to worse. Since she couldn't move; a couple of scientists decided to force themselves onto her and then raped her brutally as she watched.

After all of that Sapphire cried out in despair and kicked the guy off her before grabbing a survival knife from one of the other scientists she killed and slit the throat of her rapist and brutally castrated the other men before killing them in the most bone-cracking visceral way, then after all of her attackers were dead she made the base reactor go into meltdown before leaving the base where she was being held and stowed away on the sunbeam, keeping herself hidden as the ship took off, before breaking down into tears as she hugged herself. Then she woke up with a start and saw Richard sleeping on a bench to which he said "Sapphire, why are you in my room and in my bed? That ain't right, I mean goddamn it girl what made you do something so reckless?" To which Sapphire huddled up on the bed and said softly "I... I didn't want to be alone anymore and if you want to know more about me, not that I interest you, you will have to tell me about yourself like you promised you would, if we survived and made ourselves safe." Richard looked at her sadly before sitting up on the bench and patted the seat next to him to which Sapphire climbed out of the bed and held the blanket around her body as she walked over to Richard before sitting next to him as he laid back and said "well there is nothing much to tell really, I was just a third technician on the Aurora heading towards the phasegate installation site, I was part of a four-man one woman team and that woman's name was Crystal white, a first technician on board the Aurora and a very beautiful young woman, like you she was a ditz but when she was doing her job she was amazing, absolutely no sign of her ditzyness whenever she was on duty. I met her as she was heading to the library on the Aurora. The way I got on board was while I was at college, the captain of the Aurora visited us and gave a lecture on what was going on but it was only me that asked the right questions and after I had finished asking him what I needed, he put in a request to see my work and the tutor was more than happy to show him my work on the precursor civilisation; even without my permission so fast forward three years and I end up on the Aurora working with her."

Nine years ago:

As Richard boarded the Aurora he was dumbstruck, this was the first time he'd ever seen a capital class ship up close; the Aurora was HUGE! As he entered the hatchway of the ship he was greeted by an Alterra rep who issued him his PDA and said "Welcome on board the Aurora, third technician Richard Scepton, your living quarters are this way, follow me." He followed the rep and walked through multiple corridors and as he got closer to the living quarters he found himself staring at a bunch of Exosuits being worked on by five people one obviously being female, she had a pair of the most beautiful green eyes he'd ever seen, soft long brown hair a very curvy figure and she was also very stacked, she looked like a goddess and it was obvious that she was the object of affection for her team and before he knew it she looked up and stared into his eyes before giving him a beautiful smile and waving making him blush, to which the rep said "Now look here Mr Scepton, first technician white is not easily impressed and she is very popular with the men on this ship for two obvious reasons but she seems to have taken a liking to you so be warned, she will not rest until she has your interest," To which Richard said "yeah well I am here to work, not to socialise and make nice, nice with anybody I have a job to do and that is all that interests me." with those words Richard headed into his quarters and sent the rep away before locking himself in his room and falling asleep, after travelling for hours he was very tired and slept all the way through the launch of the Aurora.

7 Hours later:

"Paging third technician Scepton, paging third technician Scepton; you are required to head to the captain's office for reassignment, repeat; report to Captain's office for reassignment." As the AI called him Richard got up a bit irritated and said in a flat tone "Oh for fuck sake I'm bloody tired! Is this thing so damn important that I cannot even get a decent rest?!" he then let out a small growl before sorting himself out and getting dressed, about half an hour later Richard left his sleeping quarters and headed towards the office to meet the captain but before he even got to the corridor that led to the captain's office the captain met him half way and said "Good morning Mr Scepton, I trust your quarter are satisfactory? Anyway let's head to the library because there is something I wish to show you." After the captain said that, they headed to the library and began to talk about Richard's work "I have to say Mr Scepton, that your most recent dissertation on the precursor civilisation and their culture was outstanding! SO much in fact that I had all of your work catalogued and placed in the library so our crew can learn more about our jobs, and don't worry I have forwarded over fifteen million credits into your account at five million per dissertation and I hope you will continue to impress and inform us all about what we would be dealing with in that galaxy." Richard nodded and went to say something but was interrupted by the sound of very feminine footfalls behind him and before he knew it he was crashed into by 12 stone of breasts and muscle before hitting the floor only to hear "Oh I hope that I'm not too late!" he then got up angrily and chased the woman to the library; no sooner had he got into the library he heard the girl let out a celebratory yell before she said "Oh thank god it's been published! I've always wanted to read all of these dissertations by 'him', so what one is it this time? Omigod! It's about the precursor culture! I'm so lucky and happy right now!" she then started to sing and skip out of the library not noticing Richard to which he said "Is it me or was that first technician White?"

The captain's eyes lit up as he smiled and said "Well Richard that is partly why I wanted to speak to you in my office, as of today you are on Pressure Re-Active Waterproof Nano suit modification duty with First technician White's team; it was her request that you be brought onto her team, but the thing is she doesn't know what you look like so be prepared to be fangirled over when she finds out who you are, good luck Mr Scepton you will need it." Richard sighed and said "Well sir to be honest I don't care, as long as my work doesn't get interrupted by constant questioning I will be fine." with that the captain said "this may be strange coming from me as your captain but Jesus Christ my boy; lighten up will you? We are going on a long journey and we cannot have stress and division among the ranks on this ship!" After that Richard returned to reality to which Sapphire said "So in reality you are a very intelligent and strong man... with about as much personality as a cardboard cut-out that is obsessed with nothing but work?! Why be that way?" and all Richard said was "Because it was the way I have been living for most of my life, anyway it is time to sleep now so you head back to your bed and I will sleep in mine." To his surprise Sapphire looked at him with big watery eyes as her bottom lip quivered, to which she said "Please let me stay with you, I won't be much trouble I promise! Just don't leave me alone again!" Staring at Sapphire's expression Richard started to feel uneasy and found that he just couldn't say no to her, so in the end he gave up and said "I may be cold and unapproachable but, goddamn it! I still cannot say no to a pretty face! Alright you can stay here in my room and in my bed while I sleep on the bench," Sapphire looked at him a bit puzzled and said "But Richard, I was hoping to share your bed with you, oh and don't get the wrong idea, I'm not a shameless hussy that will sleep with anyone, I'm just someone who is very lonely and can feel the cold quite a lot due to my sensitivity so please? After all I am still a woman regardless of who or what I am," Richard just stared at her and said "Not all women are like you, some women hate the thought of cuddling up to a man that they have only known for a couple of days, I will be honest with you as I always am; but you are not acting like a woman," to which Sapphire said "That's not true, you do lie to me; oh yeah I know who and what you are Richard, I know what skills you have but for some reason you have decided not to mention your medical expertise, no normal technician can treat the wounds of a completely new species of human, vampire or whatever I am, so how did you manage to stabilise my wounds and keep me alive after I was so fatally wounded?" Richard paused for a moment before grinning and saying "Well Sapphire there is something you need to know about me and after you have heard what it is; I am very sure that all of your questions about me, yourself and Amythyst will be answered...

To be Continued...


	6. Chapter 6 Ghosts

Chapter 6: Ghosts

"Well Sapphire there is something you need to know about me and after you have heard what it is; I am very sure that all of your questions about me, yourself and Amythyst will be answered, the fact is that like you, I'm not human I'm..." Before he could finish his sentence he felt a tremor underneath the base and before he could think his PDA said "WARNING! Major seismic activity detected; base integrity may be compromised, suggest immediate evacuation from area immediately." Richard looked at Sapphire who sighed and said "well Sapphire, I guess that revelation will have to wait, get in the Seamoth and head one thousand, two hundred and seventy-six kilometres south, you will see my habitat as you get closer to it and I will be following on the Seaglide so let's go, alright?" he then patted her head and she blushed as she nodded, then they left the habitat that they were living in and no sooner had they got three meters from it, the habitat collapsed and the ground opened to which Sapphire let out a terrified scream to which Richard shouted "GET MOVING!" As soon as they reached full speed several Bonesharks started pursuing them and shrieking letting others know that there was a fast moving meal heading their way to which Richard shouted "Shut the fuck up Bony!" he then shot the nearest Bonesharks with the stasis rifle and made his getaway with the Seamoth that held Sapphire in tow. About three hours later they got close to the habitat where Amythyst was sitting patiently awaiting their arrival after hearing the shriek of the Bonesharks that Richard had evaded and said "Wow those creatures have a very loud cry; that means that Richard is on his way back and hopefully with good news; but even if he doesn't, I will be glad to have him back because I have missed him for the entire week he has been gone; please be safe Richard my love." Meanwhile as this is all going on, something ghostly starts wandering the halls of the devastated Aurora...

Three hours later...

As they approach the habitat Richard gestures towards the moonpool where the Seamoth docked and instructed Sapphire to park it underneath the opening and surface slowly and climbed onto the hull of the Seamoth, as soon as it entered the sensor field of the moonpool the base CPU announced "Welcome aboard Captain" to which the Seamoth was gripped by suction cups and began to slowly recharge it's new power cell as Richard helped the shaking Sapphire out of the Seamoth saying "Hey Sapphire you have nothing to be scared of in this habitat because myself and your sister Amythyst live here and yes she is alive I swear to you; oh and speak of the devil..." no sooner had he said that Amythyst came dashing into the moonpool with tears of joy in her eyes as she embraced Richard and said "You've done it! You saved my precious sister, oh thank you Richard my love! Thank you so much!" Stunned at Amythyst's sudden surge of emotion Richard stumbled back and fell in the water, grumbling like an old man before saying "Jesus Christ Amythyst! You nearly crushed me there sweetheart, why are you so emotional?" to which she said "When I detected the earthquake near your location I thought you were crushed, but then I heard the Bonesharks screech and it gave me back my hope; please Richard, don't leave me alone again you hear?" she then hugged him tightly as he gently stroked her back as she cried into his chest to which he thought _"Hmmm, something doesn't seem right with Amythyst, I'll have to check her out because if it is what I think it is then I'm in trouble with both of these girls, I hope to the spirits that I'm wrong or I am going to be fathering some more children whether I want to or not..."  
_ then after that thought he looked at Sapphire who was speechless to which he said, "Well Sapphire, as promised here is your beautiful sister alive and well, speaking of which, Amythyst I am gonna need to check you out because you are acting strange and it is the same with you Sapphire, I need to get you into this medical suit to help your wounds heal faster, it will treat your injuries constantly and administer painkillers when needed but what I am gonna do is have Amythyst put you in the suit since you are both women and stripping a woman I barely know seems wrong to me, no matter what the reason is, so Amythyst; why don't you take your sister to the infirmary and sort her out while I do some maintenance, repairs and building?" Amythyst nodded to which Sapphire said "No, I want you to do it Richard, you've already seen me naked before when you initially treated my injuries; so what's different now? I'm still me and you are still my saviour so why don't you do it? Are you shy?" Richard rolled his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose before saying "What's different is that your vital signs are stable and the wounds have been cleaned and temporarily closed, there is also the fact that your sister and I..." Amythyst smiled and interjected saying "Richard and I are engaged little sis, he gave me a beautiful ring on my birthday with a lovely message and a promise; so therefore when we get a chance, we will be getting married and hopefully we will start a new family..." hearing that Richard grew worried and thought _"That's it I was right! Oh hell I am so screwed now! I KNEW something was wrong, I just hoped it wasn't."_ Richard then slowly backed away from the flirtatious glances of Amythyst and to make things worse Sapphire was giving him the same looks to which Richard said "Oh crap!" he then dashed away from the girls who took up pursuit of Richard forcing him to leave the habitat, lock it down to prevent the women from pursuing him and head straight back to the Aurora in his Seamoth."

As Richard left the habitat the girls went back to normal to Sapphire said in an embarrassed and worried voice "what the hell just happened and why did I, why did WE act like that?" to which Amythyst went all sorrowful and said "no this can't be happening, I can feel my cybernetic implants malfunction, why? Why now when finally there is someone who cares about me," she then went over to a corner and huddled up as she cuddled herself and cried, to which Sapphire said "Wow you really do care don't you and I can see why, he is very handsome, honourable and gentle person isn't he? When he treated my wounds in my lifepod he stripped me and despite seeing me naked, he didn't try anything unsavoury, in fact he just focused on my injuries and made it so I felt comfortable despite the pains I felt after getting impaled by that panel and I love him for that but sadly his heart belongs to you, I'm not surprised though, you were his first point of contact after all the years he has been stranded alone on this planet since the ship he was on got blown out of the sky and you are more attractive than me and also, from what I can gather with the information I gained from him, he lost his heavily pregnant wife in the explosion of his ship and I bet you any money that is where he has headed." Amythyst looked at Sapphire and said "so it was just as I figured, when he saved me and treated my wounds, like he did with you; he never took any liberties with me while I was unconscious and that is why I have feelings for him too and I have noticed how distant he gets from time to time but of all the times for our implants to malfunction and make us go all weird, this is the worst possible time it could have happened."

Back near the Aurora...

After escaping the advances of Amythyst and Sapphire he found himself back at his old base where he originally started and the first place he met Amythyst, as he entered the habitat he noticed that it was flooded and there was no power so he swam to the power room of the habitat and removed the depleted reactor rods before putting them in a locker and deconstructing it eliminating the reactor rods inside it, he then looked at the nuclear reactor and said "I think I should get rid of this piece of shit and replace it with something else because I am so sick of building a locker placing the depleted rods inside it and deconstructing the bastards, I also need to reinforce this base because until I figure out how to restore Amythyst and Sapphire to normal I am staying here," after saying that he deconstructed the nuclear reactor and left the habitat with no power source while he surfaced for air and looked around, after staring at the endless ocean he swam to where his adventure began and climbed aboard his lifepod that to his amazement, had stayed in its original position, with that he climbed onto the top of it and sat down looking at the devastated Aurora and the night sky to which he said "damn that looks pretty, even if it is a monument to my lost, colleagues, friends and... and family, why did we have to try and rescue that fucking ship's crew? If we hadn't responded to that fucking distress signal Crystal would still be... damn it, DAMN IT ALL!" he then slammed down on his pod hull denting it with his rage, before crying out Crystal's name and breaking down into tears.

Ten years ago...

"This is captain Paul Torgaal of the Degassi our ship has been hit by an unknown energy projectile and we are crash-landing on an unknown planet; I have my son Bart on board and we are *Static* seek immediate assistance! Message repeats." while he was doing maintenance on the Aurora's communications array Richard thought to himself "it has been months since this bastard message has been playing and I am pretty damn sure that the energy that took them out was precursor in origin, but no... Despite my continued warnings and concerns our 'ever honourable' captain has set his mind on rescuing those survivors and if it truly does involve the precursors, those people are as good as dead, especially when they were driven near extinction by an unknown Virus, If the captain truly read my work he would abandon this fool's errand but nope, the fucking moron..." as he ranted on, he heard a familiar voice above him saying "hey good lookin' why are you so bent outta shape huh? Has the big bad captain upset you again?" as Richard looked up he saw a beautiful pair of green eyes staring at him affectionately to which he said "Oh hey Crystal, how are you? Are you ready for the party tonight?" to which Crystal said "yeah I'm looking forward to the party, who'd have thought that we'd be engaged so soon? But you know what, I am happy about it, what about you?" she then dropped down from the top of the Pressure Re-Active Waterproof Nano suit and as she landed her breasts bounced to which Richard said "Hey Crystal, you really should stop yourself from popping out of your top y'know strap those things down, well at least until we get back to our quarters," to which Crystal crossed her arms across her chest and squeezed her ample breasts together and pouted before saying "Aw but I like being this way, oh well I guess our nice-nice time will have to wait until we finish our work right Richey-poo?" she then winked at him and gave him a kiss on the lips and said "I love you so much Richard and I don't want to lose you; ever since we have been a couple I have been the happiest woman in the world and I cannot wait until we get married." she then walked off with her hips swaying provocatively before she stopped, turned to face Richard and blew him a kiss, she then turned around and saw the other workers goofing off and said "Will you four, behave yourself and get on with your work! This is NOT A FUCKING PEEPSHOW!" she then turned around, struck a coquettish pose with her hands on her hips and winked at Richard again before saying "Well my shift is over sweetheart, I'll see you later 'kay?" Richard then smiled and said "I'll see you tonight Crystal and this time I WILL drink you under the table," to which Crystal laughed and said "yeah in your dreams, you are a total lightweight when it comes to drinking competitions you got no chance of beating me when it comes to drinking competitions." She then laughed again and skipped off to which Richard said quietly to himself "Crystal you cute ditz, I love you so much." he then smiled while resuming his work and climbing into the Exosuit Crystal left after he finished his job and returned it to the Exosuit bay, he then began to maintain it up until the time of the engagement party in the mess hall.

As Richard remembered this moment his heart felt heavy and he let out a sad sigh and started collecting both quartz and titanium he then constructed several solar panels on his old habitat after welding the hull breaches shut and reinforcing it, before repairing the communications array and falling asleep on a newly constructed bed and as he slept that same memory of his wife's last moments haunted him causing him to wake up suddenly, he then tried to go back to sleep but he couldn't, he could feel something calling him onto the Aurora but he dismissed it and laid back down in an effort to drift back off to sleep and no sooner had he nearly fell asleep his PDA spoke up "Attention, high Bio-readings detected in the Aurora drive core; WARNING! Anomalous readings from the Aurora's D.M.D.C.C.F. detected! Suggest investigative action." Hearing that from the PDA Richard got up and said "huh? The D.M.D.C.C.F? AGAIN?! Oh for Fuck's sake!" he then left his habitat and quickly headed towards the Aurora in his Seamoth only to be ambushed by a Reaper Leviathan that took hold of his Seamoth and began to damage it to which Richard got really annoyed and shouted "WILL YOU JUST FUCK OFF YOU BIG MANDIBLED FREAK!? YOU ARE REALLY PISSING ME OFF!" he then triggered the Seamoth perimeter defence system forcing the Reaper Leviathan to release him he then got out of his Seamoth and began to repair it. Once his Seamoth was repaired he headed back to what was left of the Aurora and climbed aboard it, seeing a load of Cave crawlers around annoyed him even more so he got out his repulsion cannon and shot them into the ground crushing them as he said "Will you little bastards just die already?! I don't have time for this shit!" he then used the propulsion cannon to lift a load of heavy boxes and containers to crush the cave crawlers that attacked him. once he got away from them Richard began to look around the Aurora's corridors and they made him feel uneasy, as he wandered around the air was thick with acrid smoke and flames where roaring around him, to make things worse as he wandered around the abandoned corridors he could swear he heard a little girl laughing and running around near him, as he followed the sounds he was greeted with disturbing apparitions of the final moments that the crew of the Aurora suffered, both men and women burned by the fires and impaled by sharp metal debris going through them or even worse people exploding with depressurisation as the hull of the Aurora was ripped apart by the extreme gravity as it burned to which he said "Ah, the detestable ghosts of the past, but what is that noise? I could swear that there is a little girl running around here but how? Surely it's an illusion caused by my own grief?" he listened and he heard the laughter again and said "nope I heard it that time as clear as a bell on a misty morning, but where is it leading me?" the more he listened to the little girl's laughter, the more he felt uneasy and the more he followed the sounds until finally he saw the silhouette of a girl looking no older than five running into the living quarters; as he explored them he saw devastation everywhere and navigating the flaming passageways he found himself wandering into his old quarters where he started to extinguish the flames and repaired the door to the quarters he shared with Crystal while she was pregnant with their first child.

Eight months before the Aurora Disaster...

"Richard honey I don't feel too well, will you please take me to the infirmary? I don't wanna go on my own, I hate doctors; they scare me!" Richard smiled at Crystal and said "Why do you find doctors scary sweetie? Did something happen to you that I don't know about?" Crystal went all sad and said "W... When I was sixteen, well actually just recently before I met you I was taken to the doctors for a check-up but when I got there I... I was rendered immobile and could not move then as they dragged me to the infirmary they injected something into my neck and I blacked out, a few hours later I found myself strapped to a table naked and restrained, then without warning I felt something cut into my body and as I looked down I saw them cutting me open; as I tried to struggle they forced some weird mask over my face and I found myself blacking out again but I still felt all the cutting, poking and prodding inside of me that they did and it really hurt, then the next thing I know I feel some cold hard metallic objects being inserted into me and heard what sounded like a soldering iron going off; I then felt extreme heat inside of me and then blackness, next thing I know I wake up and some odd writing flits across my vision and my body feels heavy. a few moments later I hear the sound of a computer booting up and the writing across my vision intensifies, after that I feel like I can move again and I feel the incisions in my body being closed up, those doctors did something to me and I don't know what it was; it still haunts me each night but then when I'm with you it just leaves my mind and I suddenly feel happier; so please come with me to the doctors and protect me because I don't know what they will do to me without you there." Richard saw tears forming in his new wife's eyes and said "okay Crystal I will stay with you and will NEVER let you suffer anymore, I promise that I will never leave you no matter what." he then embraced her and she snuggled up to him with tears in her eyes as she rested her head against his chest as he held her close and stroked her soft hair.

Two hours later...

After soothing Crystal's distress they both went to the doctor's office and as they entered it, Richard felt Crystal tremble in his arms and he said "Don't worry honey, I won't let them try anything funny, if they want to use you as a guinea pig they will have to deal with me first! So don't worry okay?" she then looked into his eyes and gave him a loving kiss before nodding and holding his hands in hers, they then stepped into the office and found that the doctor was a woman and as they entered the doctor said "Welcome to the infirmary now what's wrong?" To which Crystal stammered "I... I don't feel very well, my stomach hurts and I feel sick," The doctor looked at her with sympathetic eyes and said "Oh okay here, lay down on this examination table and I will see what's up," she then patted on the examination table to which Crystal cowered behind Richard and said "No! How do I know that you won't hurt me again? You doctors are all the same! You pretend to be helpful yet you pull some shitty stunts on an unsuspecting and unwilling patient!" the doctor looked at Crystal genuinely confused and said "but I don't do that, I would never do that at all!" Richard listened to the doctor's voice and sensed that she was telling the truth and he said "Crystal my love, this doctor knows nothing about what happened to you and she has no involvement in what you experienced, she is genuinely confused so I don't think she will harm you, but just to be on the safe side..." He then looked at the doctor and she knew what he wanted, after looking at the fear in Crystal's eyes she agreed to have him stay during Crystal's examination.

As the examination started the doctor asked Crystal to get undressed and lay down on the examination table to which Crystal begrudgingly agreed to do on the condition that Richard was in the room with her, the doctor consented to this and started her head to toe examination of Crystal after she examined her thoroughly she found nothing physically wrong with Crystal and said "Well as it appears, you are physically fine, no obvious internal or external injuries however... Congratulations! You are going to be a mother," hearing that news Crystal sat up suddenly and said "Really?! For real? I... I'm gonna be a mommy?!" The doctor smiled at her and nodded, to which Crystal broke down in to tears of joy and said "Oh Richard I am so happy! I've always wanted to be a mom!" seeing Crystal happy made Richard really happy to which he said "Ive always wanted to be a daddy, that's all I ever wanted and finally I get my wish! I have a beautiful wife and a wonderful baby on the way, my life couldn't get any better!" he then embraced Crystal who embraced him back so tightly that he could feel her heart racing next to his to which Crystal said "I don't want anything to change right now, I just wanted to be in the arms of the man I love and here I am, happy and pregnant, I wish time would stop now..." they then kissed passionately and after that warm memory Richard laid on his bed and let out a sad sigh before saying "why did this have to happen? If the captain listened to me I'd be living with Crystal happily in a habitat that we would build together but no, he decided to save someone he didn't even know, just to get a hero badge, it sickens me! So many lives lost just because of one man's selfish fucking desires, god damn it..." he then turned onto his side facing the wall and saw some drawings on it, it was drawings of three stick people, two obviously female with the writing "mommy, daddy and me." underneath it and it broke his heart even more as he thought it was an illusion, he then turned to face the door only to see a little girl staring at him with big watery green eyes and hope in her expression to which she said  
"Are you my daddy?"

To Be Continued...


	7. Chapter 7 Reunion

Chapter 7: Reunion

Previously on Subnautica Ghosts of the past...

"Why did this have to happen? If the captain listened to me I'd be living with Crystal happily in a habitat that we would build together but no, he decided to save someone he didn't even know, just to get a hero badge, it sickens me! So many lives lost just because of one man's selfish fucking desires, god damn it..." he then turned onto his side facing the wall and saw some drawings on it, it was drawings of three stick people, two obviously female with the writing "mommy, daddy and me." underneath it and it broke his heart even more as he thought it was an illusion, he then turned to face the door only to see a little girl staring at him with big watery green eyes and hope in her expression to which she said "Are you my daddy?"  
After a while staring at her Richard said "is this some kind of sick joke? How could you do such a heartless thing to me huh? I bet you aren't even real; you're just an illusion caused by my grief! Begone!" as he said that he threw his PDA at the little girl who dodged out of the way and said, "Please daddy, don't do this I'm real I swear I'm real! You... you can scan me if you want! Please just listen to me!" Richard grew angry and said "Don't give me that crap! I am so sick of this stagnant air on this ship... I'm leaving!" he then went to leave by barging past the girl but she latched onto him and begged him to stay, this surprised him to which the little girl said "If... If I'm an illusion how can I do this huh? How can I do this daddy?" to which Richard said "Okay, if you are truly my daughter then answer me this, what is the name of your mother?" to which the little girl said "mommy's name is Crystal, she was a first technician on this ship before it exploded and she told me she threw you through the bulkhead doors before they slammed shut and you were separated." Listening to her Richard thought for a minute before saying "how would you know that if you were an illusion? But still, Crystal died when the bulkheads closed between us... she was crushed by the falling support beams while she was carrying you so how did she survive?" To which the little girl said "well that's complicated, she was warped by three pink haired, blue eyed girls; warped out of the way from the beams and down into the infirmary, as far as she is concerned you died when the energy field hit the pods as they went down but then, then she gave birth to me and after I was born she saw your pod flotation devices trigger with the help of the three girls; she then named me Jade and told me that one day we would all be reunited as a family if I was a good girl and here we are... M... Mommy is down in the infirmary eagerly awaiting your return daddy." Doubting her words Richard started to get depressed and as soon as Jade noticed this she tried to cheer him up by saying "you still doubt me daddy? Why's that so?" Richard looked into her affectionate eyes and said in a sad tone "I heard her screaming as the beams came down around her ears kid, and after the disaster of the Aurora, my PDA stated that there were no human life signs within a one-hundred kilometre range, that's why." Jade's eyes twinkled with a smile after hearing this and said "father, have you forgotten? Mommy, you and I are not human, remember?" After Jade mentioned that fact Richard paused for a moment before it dawned on him, he was part Precursor and so was Crystal and if what this little girl said was true then she truly was his daughter and there was a good chance that Crystal was alive too! This gave him back his smile and he said "well I guess what you say is true then Jade, it's nice to finally meet you my dear," he then opened his arms to which after picking up his PDA Jade ran into his arms sobbing and saying "I love you Daddy!" They then embraced as she sobbed into his chest.

Meanwhile down in the infirmary...

"Attention, new life signs detected, scanning ID Imprint... ID confirmed name Richard Scepton" hearing this a weak and weary Crystal sits up and stretches her arms while yawning before saying "It's about time Richard came back, I hope he's okay; tell me... Is Jade with him at all?" as she said that the AI said "Confirmed... Richard Scepton is with Jade, searching for safe route... None found." Fed up Crystal sighed and said "well thanks for nothing you stupid heap of silicone, damn it; hurry up Richard I need your help." she then checked her injuries and found that they had grown worse so finding this out Crystal decided to treat her wounds as best as she could while she had a flashback to their wedding day

Six years ago...

The mess hall was nicely decorated and the tables were set out individually for the reception by Crystal's team who begrudgingly accepted that she was unobtainable now, causing them to not be bothered about making the place look nice due to their jealousy, to which Captain Hollister took them all to one side and did a group disciplinary saying "Just because you are jealous of the fact that your superior officer is marrying someone below your station; does NOT give you the right to sabotage their big day so get over you petty selfishness and redecorate the mess hall PROPERLY or I will demote you all to lavatory cleaners! Now get out of my sight unless you want to say something to me." To which one of the technicians decided to open their mouth and said "why should that loser marry someone as great as Crystal? What makes him so special huh?" This pissed off the captain and he said "Right you little shit! I am done with your attitude; the next port we dock at I want you off my ship because as of now, your contract is terminated effective immediately; that means you selfish little shit that you are fired! As for the rest of you; If I ever see you sulking or trying to sabotage this great day again you will meet with the same fate, security; take this scumbag to the brig, DISMISSED!" no sooner had the captain said that Crystal walked in after overhearing what the captain had said and looked at the members of her team with disappointment before saying "So it's true then, you hate the idea of me and Richard getting married; well tough shit! He is worth the time and effort because well, he was not so accommodating with me at first, he actually played hard to get and instead of slobbering over pictures of me in a bikini with all my body jewellery in like you perverts did and probably still do, he got on with his work and increased the efficiency of the Pressure Re-Active Waterproof Nano suits by one hundred and twenty percent and what did you guys do? No forget I asked that; I shudder to think what you did over my bikini pictures and knowing what you have actually been doing to destroy this day for me and Richard I don't even what you guys on my team anymore, Richard and I can manage the maintenance jobs on the pressure Re-Acti..." Captain Hollister just raised his hand up politely with a smile and said "Please Crystal my dear; just call them Prawn suits, because that's what I know them as," Crystal then nodded and continued by saying "Richard and I can easily manage the maintenance jobs on the PRAWN suits ourselves; In fact when it was just me and Richard doing the jobs we got more done in one hour than we did in the whole day normally so please Captain, reassign these slackers to another area and leave me and Richard to do the PRAWN suit maintenance jobs, alone." she then saluted and added "After mine and Richard's honeymoon that is!" she then smiled and walked off to prepare for her wedding to Richard as Captain Hollister smiled at her and before she left the room she turned around to the captain and said "h... hey, regarding my body jewellery captain, do I have your permission to wear it at all time, even while I am on duty? I kinda miss wearing it when I take it out." to which the captain said "It is up to you Crystal, as long as you protect it properly while on duty I have no problem with you wearing your jewellery, it kind of makes you look more distinguished so I guess I can overlook protocol on this ship since you are one of the few women who were part of Project Eden Frontier, we have a lot of women on board but none of them are as efficient as you when you are with Richard and one other thing about him, Richard was also part of Project Eden Frontier and I am sure he knows this, when I have the time I will brief you both on what the project was designed for now hurry up Crystal, you have a wedding to attend," with that both Crystal and the Captain Saluted each other and Crystal left the captain's office as she headed to the reception hall.

About an hour later...

After her meeting with the captain, Crystal headed to her quarters and looked around them picking up a few things before walking over to her stuffed teddy bear and said "Well from today I will be Mrs Crystal Scepton and you know what Mr Wubbles, I'm happy so sadly I won't be needing you anymore; now what to do, what to do, Ah! I know, I will save you for my first child when he or she is born, that is if I have one Oh I hope to the spirits that I become a mommy; That's all I ever want from life, I want someone or something to nurture and protect; well it's nearly time for my wedding now so I will just drop these things off at Richard's quarters if he doesn't mind, that is at least until we get moved into bigger quarters." With that she headed to Richard's place and struggled to carry her stuff into it to which she heard a familiar sound and a familiar voice saying "Hello my fair lady, would you like me to carry your stuff for you?" she smiled and turned around to see Richard in his wedding tuxedo piloting the PRAWN suit they were working on to which she said "Y'know Richeypoo, isn't it bad luck to see the bride before the wedding takes place?" Both Richard and Crystal stared into each other's eyes longingly for a few seconds before laughing out loud, to which Crystal said "yeah, If we were superstitious which we aren't," Richard then jumped out of the PRAWN suit and they both embraced for a while before Richard picked up Crystal's stuff and said "Come this way, we have been moved into bigger quarters already, heh big enough to use this big guy to transport your stuff to it," he then patted the PRAWN suit lightly making it emit a small clank, he then got into the suit and picked up all of Crystal's things as she clambered onto the PRAWN suit shoulders and said "well at least it beats a wedding car, Let's go Richeypoo!" they then headed to their new home and dropped Crystal's belongings off before heading to the wedding reception.

Back to the present...

As Crystal laid there remembering that moment, her heart warmed up and overflowed with joy as she saw Richard carrying Jade on his shoulders on their way to the Infirmary as she used her PDA to access the internal Camera systems of the Aurora so she could watch their progress and said "Ah I really love that man, I am so glad I decided to marry him, but what has he been doing for five years? Well no doubt he will tell me about what has gone on but no matter what happens I will always love him and never ever leave his side so be honest with me Mizuki; what has happened with Richard over these past five years?" As she said that, a young woman looked up at her and said, "as your Spirit guide I have to be honest with you and I cannot lie either, so what I am about to say is true; within those five years he has ended up engaged to another woman and has looked after both her and her little sister; to make things worse they have both fallen in love with him and they have actually become a danger due to their enhancements going all funny," hearing these words from her spirit guide she sighed and said "Well it's hardly surprising that he is going to remarry, he thought I'd died when those beams crashed around me, so how could he have known that I was still alive after being so overcome with grief and turning into a bitter Bertie? Regardless of this, I will still remain his wife and still love him, heh; who knows, maybe a harem of three women all looking out for his safety will set him right again," Mizuki looked at her and said "Y'know Crystal, are you SURE that you don't have the ability to see into the future? Because that is exactly what I see." To which Crystal just smiled and said "Who knows Mizuki, who knows." with that Crystal fell asleep awaiting the arrival of Richard and Jade.

After a few hours of sleep Crystal was awakened by her PDA speaking up "Caution! Dark Matter Drive Core Containment field unstable, Anomalous readings detected within the Aurora Drive core, estimated time to Dark Matter Containment field failure three days, seven hours," hearing this worried crystal so in a panic she tried to contact Richard via PDA to PDA communication, a little programme she designed for both her and Richard and she said "Richard I hope you can hear me, the DMDCCF is going to fail in just over three days and I am detecting unknown signals from within the drive core that appear to be precursor in origin so get your handsome ass here and help me!" Unfortunately Crystal was met with static and she said "God damn it, why now of all times does this have to happen? I'm badly injured and apart from the only man who can help and heal me properly, hurry up for fucks sake or we are all dead, this explosion won't be like the original, with it being supercharged by Precursor energy this whole fucking ship will crater and the planet rendered uninhabitable!" so she kept on trying to get in touch with Richard in an effort to direct him to the drive core but to no avail.

Meanwhile in maintenance corridor B of the Aurora...

Richard and his daughter Jade are trying to reach the Infirmary when Richard's PDA started to Malfunction to which he started to get annoyed and went to destroy it only to have Jade stop him by saying "Hey Daddy, will you let me try to fix it? Because I know I can," she then snatched his PDA off him and began to tinker with it as he carried her on his shoulders while they were on the move, seeing his only daughter fiddle with his PDA in an effort to fix it made him smile but just as he went to take it off her she said "There! It's fixed," and no sooner had he took his PDA back it booted up and said "Greetings Survivor Great job not dying to assist you further in Survival instances you have been given this Personal Data assistant, software version has been updated to v2.67A," then it paused for a few seconds and said "Attention Survivor, a new message is being received..." after it said that Crystal's message came through as clear as a bell to which he stared at his daughter who was beaming with happiness and he said "Well... Well done Jade! You appear to have fixed my PDA, granted it is still as tactless as ever but wow, I am amazed that you have fixed such a complex device at such a young age, I am really proud of you!" he then cuddled his daughter who said "Thanks daddy, you can say nice things to me later, but right now mommy is trying to talk to you and I think it is something very important," Richard cleared his throat and said "ah yes, of course; I er... I best answer huh?" Jade nodded slowly to which he replied to the message only to have Crystal say in a bit of a disgruntled tone "Finally! I've been tryin' to reach you for at least two days now, what happened? Did you drop your PDA into a cave or something? No matter Richard I'm glad to hear from you again after so long, anyway what do you think of our little treasure, isn't she amazing? Listen... We have an issue here; the DMDCCF is once again at a critical level and in about three days it will go boom; you need to get here to the infirmary immediately and treat my injuries so we can both stabilise the Dark Matter Drive Core Containment field generators, now as you know we cannot permanently repair them; all we can do is fix then just enough to limit the explosion to a category one when compared to the category three explosion we will get f we don't do something about it and since you are a first technician like me you KNOW how bad a category three explosion is... so get down here to the infirmary ASAP, Crystal out, oh and one more thing Richeypoo... I love you and I always will now get your handsome ass down here and see me!" with that she ended the communications and full of hope for the first time in years Richard smiled and kissed his daughter on the forehead before giving her a piggyback and sprinting through the flaming halls of the Aurora towards the infirmary.

After running for about an hour Richard started to grow despondent, the direct route to the infirmary was cut off by some flaming debris of the Aurora and running around to try and find at least one way in he found that the Infirmary was completely cut off from the rest of the ship over flaming pits of fire and razor sharp metal fragments of the Aurora hull that would kill you should you fall on them; growing anxious, Richard tried to use his plasma cutter to make his way down to the level of the Infirmary only to find that the battery had ran out; to which he cursed in the language of the Precursors before trying to find a spare battery for his cutter but to no avail, and no sooner had he looked up from his inventory he saw a Warper looming over him with its razor sharp scythe-like arms raised in attack to which he shouted out "HOLY FUCKING SHIT!" Then the Warper attacked him; he dodged out of the way protecting Jade while getting himself badly injured before saying "You fucking piece of shit! I am gonna kill you for trying to attack me! Come on then you freak, let me see you try that shit again!" The Warper obliged to which Richard responded by stabbing it in the side of the head with his survival knife only to have his knife warped away as the Warper in its death throes, brought in more of its kind to which Jade started to panic and said "Daddy I'm scared! I want to go to mommy with you! Please don't try and fight them or you'll die!" Seeing his daughter cry, Richard put his knife away and picked her up bridal style before sprinting off down the corridor, Warpers in pursuit then in a freak accident one of the Warpers got him with a teleport and shot him right into the Infirmary while he carried Jade to which he heard the sound of some repulsion field power up around them before hearing a familiar seductive voice saying "Well what took ya so long this time handsome? You stood me up for our date," he then looked up to see Crystal in her underwear cradling her right arm while she was covered in bandages to which Richard smiled and said "Yeah about that, I meant to call you but my phone was broken." Crystal pouted while folding her arms across her ample bosom and pouting in a very sultry manner before saying "No matter honey; I will punish you later, but right now we have a few jobs to do." She then walked over to him for a short while as her jewellery jingled off her swaying hips, before she started to run over to Richard and when she got a bit closer to him, she jumped into his arms, then she started to hug him so tightly that her chest pressed against his so much, that he could feel her heart pounding in synch with his just like it did during the night Jade was conceived.

Nine months before the Aurora incident...

Richard and had been married for a year now, they had settled into their new home and had started on a personal project with the consent of the Captain, it was an effort to improve the performance of the PRAWN suit under hazardous conditions, what they wanted to do was create a programme that activated should the pilot of the PRAWN suit or even the Seamoth become incapacitated for some reason, what the programme would do was it'd link up with the pilot's biometrics and would constantly monitor their vital signs and brain activity, should any of that become erratic, the programme would take over the piloting of the vehicle in an effort to return them to base as it alerted the medical staff on board the nearest habitat of the patient's condition it would link up with the navigation computer and sonar system to transport the pilot back safely and it was a work in progress, during this time Crystal felt broody and wanted to be a mommy to which she turned to Richard and said "Hey Richard can I talk to you for a bit? I'd like to discuss something with you that is important for the both of us," Richard downed his tools and looked into Crystal's eyes before saying "What is it sweetie? Is there something on your mind?" Crystal let out a sigh before taking a deep breath and said "Richard, do you... do you like children?" Richard looked at her with love in his eyes and said "Of course I like Children sweetheart, I may be a workaholic but I do sometimes watch parents on board this ship interacting with their kids and I do often wonder what it's like to be a parent, why do you ask?" After hearing Richard say that, Crystal's eyes lit up with happiness and she said "I'm so happy that you feel that way Richard because... I... I wanna be a mommy, that is all I have wanted to be ever since I was a little girl; this is why I got over being enhanced against my will for project Eden Frontier so fast, so tonight shall we... shall we try for a baby?" Hearing Crystal say that Richard blushed and said "B... Baby? Look Crystal, I know I said I love the idea of being a parent but do you think that we can do that? I mean... I don't feel like I am ready for a child yet and Babies are very expensive!" looking into Richard's eyes Crystal went all watery eyed and began to make a pouty face as she made her bottom lip quiver before saying "Pleeeeeease Richeypoo, Please! I really want to be a mommy and we both earn enough to support a child so what's stopping us? After all we have been married for a year now and I feel more than ready to have a baby so please?" Richard looked at her face and smiled before saying "Ah damn it, I can't say no that cute face can I?" he then gave her a cuddle to which Crystal gave him a loving kiss on the lips before dancing around the PRAWN Bay smiling and saying "YAY!" before tripping over a loose cable and landing on her backside before saying "Owee that hurt!" To which Richard chuckled and said "You cute ditz..." he then walked over to Crystal whose eyes had teared up a little bit and helped her up before giving her a hug to which she sighed affectionately and said "So tonight we try right?" to which Richard smiled and patted her head gently before saying "If that is what you want Crystal then that is what we will do." they then embraced for a while then resumed their work as Crystal hummed a happy song.

At the infirmary...

As Richard perked up, so did Jade and Crystal to which Jade said "Mommy daddy and me are finally together, I'm so happy!" Crystal smiled and said "Jade sweetheart, you aren't the only one, I'm glad to have my hubby back after so long... Even if he has gotten engaged to another girl or two in my absence," she said with a mischievous smile to which Richard said "how... did you?" To which Crystal just said, "a little fox told me, but this is for another day, right now we need to sort out the DMDCCF just enough so it doesn't cause a category 3 explosion and with the three of us I am sure we can fix it; it can't have escaped your attention that our little girl is a genius and with her help we can keep the detonation to a category 1 explosion, so let's get to the core now!" with that Crystal climbed out of the infirmary with Richard and Jade in tow as they headed to seal the drive core, it took them about half an hour to get to the drive core and as soon as they got into it they started welding the Containment field generators, just as Richard did, three days after the drive core detonation that blew a big hole in the Aurora hull at the front. About an hour later the Drive core was reinforced and no sooner had they fixed it they were attacked by a lot of Warpers that chased them out of the drive room, while the others destroyed the containment field generators; causing a massive chain reaction of explosions behind them as they were running down the maintenance halls with fireballs erupting around them. After running for about an hour they came to the massive hole in front of the Aurora and as the final explosion went off, the three of them were thrown clear of the Aurora right down deep into the Koosh zone where a load of Ampeels and Bonesharks charged at them

To be continued...


	8. Chapter 8 Revelations

Chapter 8: Revelations

Previously on Subnautica, Ghosts of the past...

After running for about an hour they came to the massive hole in front of the Aurora and as the final explosion went off, the three of them were thrown clear of the Aurora right down deep into the Koosh zone where a load of Ampeels and Bonesharks charged at them, they were too late, the ampeels and bonesharks had gotten too close and Richard was counting down the seconds in his head as they drew ever closer as he hugged his family, waiting for their fate but suddenly just as they were about to be bitten there was the sound of a repulsion cannon going off and the hostile fauna that was approaching got blasted away from them, then there was the sound of warping and as Richard turned around there was no one there. Confused at what just happened Richard looked at his family and said "What just happened? We are still alive and there was the sound of a Repulsion cannon going off; do any of you have one?" both his wife and child shook their head and Jade said I think it was them daddy, she then pointed behind her and sure enough there was someone there with a flashing repulsion cannon in her hands then in the blink of an eye two other girls appeared behind her and they three of them surrounded the small family. As the three of them drew close Richard could see that the three girls were triplets, one had multiple eyebrow peircings in her right eyebrow and a pierced lip; she also had multiple rings going through her right ear, the other one had three eyebrow piercings above her left eye two rings in each ear and what looked like a snakebite piercing through her lip, the third and final one who was obviously the leader had three piercings in her left ear, two piercings in her right ear both her eyebrows were pierced, she had one lip piercing in and she had multiple navel rings in. After staring at Richard for a while she beckoned them to follow and before they knew what happened, the three of them, six including these mysterious women were surrounded by this odd energy and the next thing they knew; they were in a very lived in habitat to which the CPU just announced "Welcome aboard" they then went to leave the room they were in only to be stopped by the leader of the three girls who said, "Well then Mrs Scepton, I guess it's been a while hasn't it? How are you doing?" Crystal who was still trying to adjust to the sudden change in the light said "You say that but I cannot even see you yet, but your voice does sound familiar to me; please tell me who you are and how you managed to save my husband, my daughter and I? And what was that light, it felt familiar." the young lady chuckled and said, My name is Akémi Atashihito and the other two girls are my twin sisters Sakura and Kari, the three of us are just like you and Richard however, that story can wait what needs to be clarified is this; we are all linked to one and other and the link is in our pasts. That is all you need to know at the moment, hopefully your eyes will have adjusted to the light in here now." As soon as Akémi said that their eyesight returned to normal and Jade looked directly at Kari and said "hey you're that pretty lady who taught me how to read, and you," she said looking at Sakura and continued "You are the one that treated my injuries and taught me about my daddy and mommy." Both of the girls nodded and Kari said "thanks for calling me pretty but I am not that good looking, besides we are family anyway so it seems strange for you to say that Jade." to which Richard said "wait, what do you mean 'we are family'? I barely know you, nor have I ever seen you before in my life, are you a little unstable?" Hearing Richard say that Akémi stormed over to him with an angry expression on her face and said "Is that any way to talk to your elder sisters?!" she then placed him in an arm lock and wrestled him down to the ground before placing her fingertips against the base of his skull and said "Were you anyone else you would be DEAD now for speaking to me like this but..." she then let out a sigh before continuing "...but since you are my brother after all, I can attribute your rudeness to being alone on this planet for years and the fact that your memories have been tampered with by the Alterra scientists, but as for you Crystal and Jade, your memories are not as badly broken as Mr charisma over there," she said pointing at Richard who just rolled his eyes at her saying "Whatever," only to be tripped up and restrained before being hauled back up and slammed against the wall aggressively, to which Sakura said "Watch your mouth you ingrate, we risked our asses to save your stupid backside so show us some respect LITTLE BROTHER..." she then inserted a syringe into his arm and injected him with something that stopped him from moving, to which he said "What have you done to me? What the hell did you just inject into me?" To which Sakura replied "it is a compound that will unblock your memories and undo the tampering that those Alterra scumbag scientists did to them." she then removed the syringe and walked off as Richard collapsed to the ground and blacked out.

As Richard slumped to the ground unconscious Crystal ran over to him and said in an aggravated tone "What have you done to my husband you cow?" To which Sakura said "I have done nothing to him, I merely gave him an antidote to the memory altering chemical cocktail prevalent in his system, he'll be just fine I promise." with that she smiled and walked off as Richard lay there sleeping and started having flashbacks to before the Aurora incident

Three years before the Aurora embarkation

"... now our guest speaker has just arrived and is about to enter the room so, all rise," after being told to get up from his seat by his most hated lecturer he got up with a grumble and said in a voice so only he could hear it "Why do I have to stand up for some stupid captain who knows jack scrat about the Precursors? I know a lot more than the teachers here so why should I be taking this pointless lecture?" After he said that the lecturer cleared her throat and said "Ahem, introducing Captain Hollister of the Alterra corps, he is going to be captaining the newly built Aurora to a distant planet for the new Phasegate installation in three years' time, if any of you have any questions on the matter, feel free to ask them," as soon as she said that one of the other students spoke up and said "hey what is the phasegate installation thing? Aren't a large percentage of the phasegate under the control of the Torgaalgin group? Why are you trying to copy them?" To which the captain said, "well then aren't we curious? Although I am here to answer questions regarding the phasegate I am not permitted to answer that question as it is a need to know basis and you don't need to know, sorry to be blunt but that is the way we at Alterra deal with business, any other questions?" looking around the room Captain Hollister heard a sneer aimed at him and as he turned around he saw Richard sitting back in his chair, arms behind his head and feet up on his desk to which Richard said "What are you staring at?" to which the captain replied "You seem to have an odd outlook on life, we at the Alterra corps may have a place for your type of personality," to which Richard just stared back and said "Hell no, Why would I want to be a part of your crew? You know nothing about the Precursors and the phasegate is using stolen precursor tech; I have no time for thieves and assholes, I'm out of here." With that he went to leave but the lecturer tried to stop him to which he said to her in an angry tone "if you don't get out of my way I will throw you out of my way! I don't care if you are my lecturer, I want nothing to do with this Alterra commissioned clown!" he then pushed her out of the way and stormed off back to his dormitory. the lecturer went to pursue him only to be stopped by captain Hollister saying "there is no need for you to go after him, he WILL come back on his own and since I am not doing anything at all this month I will always be in your lectures scouting out potential recruits and I really want that young man to be one of them, what is his name?" the Lecturer, confused at the captain's behaviour flicked through the register and said "His name is Richard Scepton, a very talented and well informed student on the Precursor culture but why he is being rude I don't know, he isn't usually like this; In fact he always seems to be polite and charming even if he hates someone so why? The captain smiled and said listen there is a reason why I want Mr Scepton on my ship and I just know you are going to try and have him removed from this place but if you do that, Alterra will pull ALL funding it has donated towards this place and you will once again be back at square one because Alterra is invested in Mr Scepton and if you remove that investment, our interest will vanish."

The lecturer looked at Captain Hollister confused and said "Wait, we have plenty of brilliant students in this academy so why are you interested in only him? Is there something we don't know?" The captain went all serious and said in a commanding tone "That is Privileged information and you do not have the clearance to acquire it, the reason for our interest in him is classified and any medical intervention on him cannot be performed without Alterra's express written permission and at all times; if the medical intervention is permitted, three Alterra staff members must be present at the start of the examination, in between the surgical procedure and after it, do you understand?" The lecturer nodded and said "okay then let us continue with the Q and A," As the Q and A continued the captain and the lecturer failed to notice Richard was watching them and throughout his observation of the Q and A his mind felt a bit fuzzy and he returned to his dorms to lie down, next morning the lecturer tried again to get Richard to interact with the captain and fed up with her pushiness Richard finally snapped and said "Alright then, if you insist that I take part I have a few questions for ya! ONE, what IS the phase gate and why do you idiots want to use it? TWO, Where did you steal the technology from and why did no one try to stop you? And THREE, just how stupid do you think we are? I've heard rumours of a secret project that Alterra is working on, it appears that you seem to be grooming humans to be more sexual and you seem to be modifying the women to be more submissive and fertile so that your bastard men can have a good time with them and spawn some more war-loving resource consuming parasites."

As this carried on the lecturer tried to smooth things over but failed to which the captain said to Richard "Although we ARE doing a secret project, it is not to consume the resources of the planet, nor is it an attempt to suppress women, it is an attempt to open up trade routes for everyone that wish to go into space and do business on an intergalactic scale, and as for 'making women more submissive and fertile' it is untrue, we do not endorse female repression, we treat them as equals and are an equal opportunity employer, now on to your first question, the Phasegate is a form of interspatial transport for space vessels giving them a chance to extend their reach for custom and for your second question, Alterra do not steal technology, we develop it and the reason no one stopped us is because what we are doing is 100% legal and finally for your third question, we at Alterra don't think of anyone as stupid, just 'misinformed' about what is happening and hopefully we can dispel any misinformation that you may have received about us."

one year later...

As Richard finished off his dissertation on the precursors he had a strange feeling in the back of his head and something was eating away at him, why did he know so much about the precursors? Why did he really hate the captain that visited him in that lecture? After he finished his work he fell asleep and started to dream, the first thing he remembered was being on another planet as he looked around it he saw three girls that looked like triplets, when one of them spotted him all three of them ran over to speak to him and the leader of the three said "little brother, something has gone horribly wrong everyone is getting sick and dying, please little brother what is going on, I'm scared!" as she said that the other two girls ran up to him and all three of them embraced him to which he found himself saying "don't worry my sisters, we will be fine I will protect you if I have to and by the way, you three are older than me so you shouldn't be scared, if anything I should be the one scared." As they embraced him he heard what sounded like a cannon going off and the whole island shook as there was a blast in the sky and with that he passed out while holding these three girls and then he woke up.

the next morning he had a horrible headache and felt sick, something didn't seem right to him and as a result he was out of sorts for all that day, so much so that the lecturer told him to return to the dorms and get some rest but as he went to refuse he saw the Captain staring at him and let out a little growl before doing as he was told; as he returned to the dorms he began writing more in his dissertation and before he knew it, it was time for bed again and once more as his head hit the pillow he dreamt of that same scene only this time he found himself staring at a beautiful young woman who was hurt so he ran over to her with his 'sisters' and treated her wounds, they were then ordered to go into some quarantine chamber which they did and as they all went into their chambers they watched as this virus broke out infecting the whole civilisation and the last thing he heard was a command to go into cryogenic sleep and that is what he did, as he laid down in the cryopod he saw the last living precursor scientist do something to the cannon before dying and as the cryogenic pods activated he woke up again and began to write more on his dissertation.  
Still feeling unwell Richard returned to his lectures and ignored everything that was said to him and just continued to learn then late that night something returned to his memory regarding what happened to the precursor civilisation and he finished off his dissertation by telling them about his vivid dreams not giving a shit about being taunted and said "It seems that the precursor civilisation died out because of some virus and none of them survived but there is one thing that confuses me, why is there so much that I know about the precursors? I don't know, It is like I was part of this civilisation but..." as he said that the captain nearly choked on his coffee, surprising Richard who just continued and said "But that is not very likely is it? I mean if I was precursor I would be dead so then why do I know so much?" To which the captain while trying to cover up his panic said "Well maybe because you are so smart and well-educated, I mean it's not like your dreams are memories right? Heh, heh" he then began to wipe the sweat of his brow and said "Well that said I... I have to go now, but I will be back once again when the graduations are over so until then keep studying and I will see you all again," he then made a quick exit to which Richard thought to himself _"Hmm strange,"_ he then shook his head and found that he was feeling better all of a sudden with the disappearance of the captain from the lecture hall and as the day ended he went to bed.

Back to the present...

As Richard laid there remembering everything he started to get angry and finally after about eight hours of being in a fever dream he woke up with a bad headache and after a few seconds of recovery time he said "those evil Alterra BASTARDS! I finally know now why I hated that captain in the first place," as he grew angrier a purple energy emitted from him and as he smashed down onto the habitat floor with his fist just like Sapphire did to his habitat, he caused hull breaches to which Crystal said "Whoa be careful Richeypoo, you'll end up drowning us all you idiot!" she then whipped out her welder and helped the other girls repair the habitat to which Sakura said while she welded "so you finally realise then? You little brother, are precursor; Just like myself and our sisters and not forgetting your wife Crystal, the four of us are precursor and your daughter is a new generation of the precursor race, we will rebuild our civilisation and finally cure this horrid disease we call 'carar', restore our planet to normal and remove any unwanted presence that may be on our home planet, this is why we need to seek out and find our most valuable creature the sea emperor, he has been trapped by that evil corporation known as Torgaal and we need to release him from his prison, it is our duty as precursors to preserve the balance of nature and the atmosphere of our planet, even if we have to terminate ANY ship that comes within the range of our cannon although, I'd prefer it to be restored to normal so it didn't kill or destroy, just push away any ship that enters the area, or we may even have to modify the cannon to have two fire modes, lethal and non-lethal; the lethal mode will primarily be used to eliminate any Alterra vessel that may try to enter this planet's atmosphere should that vessel refuse to leave after being warned away by our repulsion mode, by now you realise that Alterra actually exhumed our cryogenic tubes and modified our memories to make us forget who we are, Akémi knew what went on shortly after overhearing a conversation between the dock master and Captain Hollister of the Aurora and it was her who managed to infiltrate the Torgaalgin group and force them to this planet and as soon as she got here with us she warped off the ship using her abilities and we activated the cannon to bring it down, and before you ask how she remembered after having her memories altered she found an old Artefact of our people and it cured her of all injuries and illness that she had sustained on the planet earth, including her piercings, it's the same for all of us, after we got our memories back and got healed we all decided to get re-pierced because we liked them and from then on we have been looking to bring down Alterra at whatever the cost, they are a big threat to us all and we are also going to find a way to overload all phasegate leading to our home planet and destroy them using our cannon but to do that we need your help, in fact we need the help of the other girls too and we owe it to them, they have been illegally modified on the genetic level using our DNA and augmented using our technology and to make things worse they have also had their memories altered and we have a responsibility to undo the damage done to them so before we do anything else you must bring them to us so we can help them,"

After hearing Sakura's long-winded explanation as to what happened he calmed down and said "Y'know Sakura, you talk too much but I can understand why but seriously stop with the nagging okay? I had enough nagging when I dealt with Amythyst and her wounds." To which Crystal grinned and said "Oh yeah about being engaged to another couple of girls while I was still alive, I haven't punished you yet have I Richeypoo?" hearing those words Richard thought " _Oh shit, how am I gonna resolve this?_ " he then turned around slowly and said "N...Now Crystal, sweetheart don't get the wrong idea, I... I thought you were dead and after being alone for five years you can understand me right?...Right?" the next thing he knew Crystal jumped on him and began to smother him with her ample chest and said "how could you do this to me before checking that I was actually dead huh? So No I cannot forgive you!" she kept on smothering him for a bit before letting him breathe and turning away while squeezing her breasts together and pouting for a bit before turning around with her hands on her hips and said "Don't be stupid Richeypoo, of course I understand but what about the other girls? They obviously love you as much as I do so what are you going to do huh? are you going to drop me and our daughter in favour of one of them or are you going to drop me and our daughter and one of them in favour of the other or will you decide to have us all? Regarding that option, I don't think they'd appreciate being a part of a harem so what will you do?" to which Richard said "I... I don't know, I am so confused about this myself because after all one, I only just learned that I am precursor and two I only just found out that you were alive and had a daughter; after many years of me being alone I lost all hope and now my hope is restored and I have to make a difficult choice." Crystal smiled at him and gave him a loving hug before saying "look sweetheart, don't get so flustered okay? You don't have to make a decision right away, just know that in the future you may have to make that choice and once that choice is made, things will not be the same as before so remember this and choose well."  
she then gave him a kiss and they finished fixing up the Habitat

Five hours later...

After fixing the Habitat and having some food Richard called his family out of the habitat on the island next to the cannon and as he looked to the left he saw the cannon emitters starting to pulse to which he said "It looks like there is a hostile ship on the way, unless the cannon is trying to maintain itself so I am going to look around and see if there is something wrong inside of it meanwhile since the Seamoth is a one person mini submersible we need to find a way to get the other girls from the habitat where I fled as their implants malfunctioned to here, for that we need to build a Cyclops but sadly my Blueprints library has been corrupted and I cannot find the plans for a cyclops anywhere so while I do the maintenance on this cannon and repair the damaged systems in an effort to gain access to the lower levels of this cannon you need to find the cyclops blueprints while my wife and I do the repairs to the upper and lower canon facility so please when you go my sisters be on the look out for any hostile little bastards that will turn you to dinner and also be aware of any new Alterra tech that we can salvage and modify, just like they did to our tech and screwed it up." After he said that his sisters nodded and went looking for the fragments of a cyclops submarine while the cannon was repaired by Richard, Crystal and his little girl Jade who drew pretty pictures on the walls, making Crystal and Richard smile as Jade hummed her favourite song that Crystal sang to her in an effort to cheer her up when she was a baby, listening to the song Richard said "Hey where did you learn that song Jade sweetheart? It's very nice," to which Jade said "Oh, mommy sang it to me when I was little; whenever I got upset, sick or hurt, mommy would sing this song to me and make me feel better isn't mommy cool?" To which Crystal blushed as Richard turned to face her and smiled before hugging her and saying "Yes Jade, she is." To which Crystal smiled and said "Oh now wait there Richard, You think it would be that easy to make me forget about what you did? you ain't getting away with it that easily, but right now I am enjoying it so I will punish you later, I promise," she then squeezed his backside and winked at him before giving him a kiss and walking off with her hips swaying provocatively to which Richard blushed and said "I can't wait," he then began to resume his repairs to which Jade stared at him confused and said quietly, "Adults are weird," she then continued with her drawings and repairs as she continued to hum the song she was taught as a toddler.  
When he finished his repairs Richard left the Cannon facility and decided to climb the cannon to get a good look around the planet and using Parkour he managed to climb the cannon right to the top and as he got to the top of the cannon the sun set and he cast his eyes over the open ocean where his eyes settled on the Aurora burning brilliantly bright and said in a sad tone "Ah that looks beautiful, but I still feel bad for the innocents on that ship that didn't survive; Why should so many people lose their lives just for one corporation to make more money, y'know what I think? I think the Captain wasn't actually trying to rescue the crew of the Degassi, I think he was going to try and take possession of the phasegate keys owned by the Torgaalgin corporation, but once again, why did so many have to die?" he then sat down on top of the cannon quietly and watch the stars in the sky fly by all night, at about two in the morning Crystal finished her repairs and looked up on top the cannon to see Richard deep in thought so she decided to call out to him and said "Hey Richard, I've done my repairs and am about to initiate a test fire of the cannon," Richard didn't respond so she sighed and said quietly to herself "Aw come on Richard don't be so depressed now, you know I am kidding about punishing you right?" she then shook her head sadly and said "Mizuki have I gone too far with Richard, because he seems _really_ down," To which Mizuki said "No Crystal it isn't what you said to him I can tell you that much, he has a lot on his mind and after learning so much about who and what he is, he is in shock, he also feels guilty for what the two girls with the malfunctioning implants who are patiently waiting for his return at his habitat have gone through because of the precursor DNA that was transfused into them, he really feels responsible for what they are experiencing so the best bet is give him some space and let's not perform the test fire tonight and let him sit up there longer." Mizuki then went silent and Crystal sighed with a sad look on her face to which Jade noticed and said "Don't be sad mommy, I'm sure daddy will come round eventually so why don't we just leave him like your fox-lady friend says," looking at Jade Crystal was surprised and said "wait, y... you can see Mizuki?" to which Jade nodded eagerly and said "Yeah and I can hear her too! What she says makes sense to me mommy so listen to her okay? And stop being sad, hey I know let's play a game shall we?" Crystal looked at Jade and laughed before saying "oh no young lady it is really late so, time for bed; we can play tomorrow," Jade then looked at her mother and said "Aw but I'm not tired and don't want to go to bed yet," Crystal started to get serious and said "don't argue with me young lady, pretty girls like you and me need our sleep, so come on, bed, NOW!" Jade started to sulk for a bit to which Richard seeing the exchange between mother and daughter said "Jade, do what your mom says, we all need our sleep so let's all get some rest as we have a big day ahead of us tomorrow," Jade then sighed for a bit before nodding and saying "Oh, okay daddy I'll go to bed," and with that they all went to bed as Richard's sisters collected what was needed to build the Cyclops for their journey back to the Habitat where Sapphire and Amythyst waited patiently for Richard to return...

to be continued


	9. Chapter 9 Engagement

Chapter 9: Engagement

The next morning when Richard woke up he felt the soft breath of Crystal on his neck and as he opened his eyes he looked around to see that the sky had a pinky-blue overcast and thought to himself "What a nice sky, well best I get up and look for some breakfast," As he went to get up he felt Crystal clutch onto him as she said "Hey Richeypoo don't get up yet, it's too early we deserve a long sleep in thanks to all the hard work we did," she paused for a moment and sighed before saying "h...hey, you do realise that what I said was a joke right?" Richard looked at her confused and said "What are you talking about?" She then got a bit worried and said "Y'know about punishing you, I... I didn't mean it okay I was just kidding." Richard sighed at her and said "Look Crystal why have you brought this up now honey? Is there something wrong?" To which Crystal just got up, walked over and then embraced him feeling a little bit down and said "It's just that you seemed really depressed last night and I thought I was responsible for it, you know I would never punish you unless you did something really bad to someone who didn't deserve it," Richard rolled his eyes before wrapping his arm around Crystal's slim waist and aid "Don't worry Crystal, I know what you were up to and what you said is true, I will one day have to make a choice and someone will end up getting heartbroken." Seeing how depressed Richard was Crystal sighed before saying "Look honey, I know how bad things seem right now but hey who knows? Maybe something will come up and you may not have to break anyone's heart," Richard looked at Crystal and said "Hey Sweetheart, what are you talking about? Of course I'm going to have to make a decision like this," Crystal sighed and said "Richard, what I am trying to get at is this, you could still marry those two and remain married to me; sort of like a harem and I don't mind sharing you with those other girls because right now, given what has been done to them they will need all the support and love they can get and it is YOU who can give that to them. Now I will leave you to think on that while I go and clean my body jewellery my piercings feel kind of uncomfortable and this has never happened before but remember what I said huh? I love you and I always will, no matter what." she then kissed him and walked off to sort out her body jewellery while Richard thought about what she just said.

Meanwhile back at the Habitat that housed Amythyst and Sapphire...

"Hey big sister, where is Richard? He's been gone for at least a week now; do you think he's okay because I am worried." Sapphire said as Amythyst looked out of the habitat window longingly for a while before turning to Sapphire and saying "Sapphire my dear, I'm sure he's okay; he just needed to get away from us as we are currently a danger to him with our Implants malfunctioning, those Alterra bastards got us good this time; we have been literally fucked up by our systems doing this and it's not fair, why did it have to happen now when we were getting so close to Richard and so close to what gave us hope, if we have lost Richard then I see no point in going on, he was he first man to make me feel human although I wasn't, he made me feel like I meant something to someone, the same goes for you right?" Amythyst then broke down crying and called out for Richard in a sorrowful tone before burying her head in her hands and sobbing bitterly as Sapphire struggled to remain strong. After that the communications relay sounded off and said "Captain a new message has arrived" before the light once again flashed and the relay once again chimed, as Sapphire clicked on the relay it played the new message, "Attention any nearby survivors this is captain Isajin Ryokuto of the recon vessel Argentinian, our short range scouting party has picked up a large landmass about 750 meters south west of the Aurora, it is advised that any survivors still alive in this area evacuate to the landmass immediately as the radiation levels around the Aurora have climbed up to a critically dangerous level and there is a high chance of a major explosion that could wipe out anything or anyone within a radius of 1 KM; we have a team inbound in a drop ship ready to provide supplies for anyone that may need them, it has also come to our attention that certain employees of the Alterra corp have been performing both illegal mining operations in the area and also illegal Cyber-genetic experimentation; as a result; any Alterra mined resources will be confiscated, any experiments will be examined by our doctors to see if we can help them and the command crews of both ships arrested, this is Captain Isajin Ryokuto of the vespertillio corp signing off." The communications relay then went silent causing Sapphire to worry, after a while Sapphire fell asleep trying to rest when yet another communication came through, "captain a new message has arrived," as the light flashed and the relay chimed again Amythyst woke up and played the message "Sapphire, Amythyst this is Richard, it has been a while hasn't it? Listen; I am currently in a bit of a bind right now, I am in the process of building a new vehicle to come and pick you both up but it will be a while before it is completed and for what it's worth I'm sorry, you will see the reason why I am apologising when I come to pick you up, Richard Out." the communications relay then went silent once more as Amythyst sighed and smiled a happy smile before saying "Whatever it is Richard that is making you apologise, I am sure that we can resolve it." she then went to bed and removed her bandages from her belly before messing with her navel piercings and once again sighing an affectionate sigh as she remembered the time Richard surprised her with a lovely diamond ring on her birthday and it made her heart feel warm.

As the night progressed Amythyst started to feel uneasy, something was coming and she could feel it, this made her feel depressed so she decided to go out and investigate the island that was mentioned in the message, as she tried to escape from the sealed habitat she got an error tone showing that she could not get out; annoyed at this she decided to jerry-rig the door and opened it up by tampering with the electronic locking system, being a first technician this job was easy, one of her training scenarios that she came up with was should she get locked out of the command panel due to some malfunction she would open up the panel and fiddle with the wires, essentially hotwiring the lock and releasing it. Doing this she managed to escape the habitat and began searching for some components to build her own Seamoth, after an hour of resource gathering and a few narrow escapes from the local predators she collected everything to construct a Seamoth submersible, once it was constructed she climbed aboard and went to the island. When she got there she saw how beautiful it was and it brought a tear to her eye, she climbed onto the island and began to investigate it only to find smouldering wreckage and human remains around the area, it devastated her but regardless of this she removed the human remains and game them a proper burial before salvaging whatever she could from the destroyed vehicle, before saying "Why did this have to happen? This planet is starting to feel like a slaughterhouse, so many lives lost due to the greed of one company... Please hurry home Richard I don't want you to die here," with that she continued to explore the island and climbed the hills that had observatories on and cast her eye towards the final resting place of the Aurora and bowed her head in respect before scanning and salvaging what she could.

Back at Akémi's base

As the sisters returned to the cannon with the supplies required, Richard started to construct a Cyclops and watched as the hulking vehicle was levitated against the sunset, it was an interesting site to behold as the mini-robots of the mobile vehicle bay flew around using the raw materials given to Richard and built the Cyclops, as it finished building it splashed down into the water and Richard decided to check it out, as he boarded the Cyclops via the front diving chamber the CPU announced "Welcome aboard captain" in what sounded like a deep British voice and as he walked around it making sure everything was in the right place he examined the power cells to see that they were all okay. Once that was done he exited the engine room and accessed the Cyclops' CPU and used his PDA to enter the DNA profiles of his wife, his daughter, Amythyst, Sapphire, his sisters and himself; allowing them access to the vehicle and once that was all done he exited the Cyclops and gave the all clear to which Crystal and Jade climbed aboard as his sisters secured the area. After everything was secured Richard added a few things to the interior of the Cyclops, things like a fabricator, a power cell charger, a battery charger and a communications relay, he also added a few beds so he and his family and indeed the other crew members could sleep, with the six of them on board they could swap out should one lot of crew members get tired. With that they made their way back to the habitat that held Sapphire and was meant to be holding Amythyst who had decided to explore away from it. As Richard grew closer to the habitat he felt a bit strange, he could feel tension in the air and as he approached the habitat he saw a fireball in the sky with Crystal shouting down the radio "Oh shit Richard! The cannon, the cannon has just fired! it hit a ship dead centre and I can see it crashing down towards your position, get out of there right..." *kzzt* The radio malfunctioned and went offline as debris hit the Cyclops and caused multiple hull breaches "ATTENTION! HULL BREACHES DETECTED!" as that announcement repeated the Cyclops' emergency alarm sounded and the submarine began to sink to the very depths of the ocean to which Richard bailed out of the Cyclops and began to search for his welder, after a while of swimming around the flooded Cyclops, Richard found his welder and began to weld the breaches shut then sighed when the CPU announced "Hull integrity restored, draining systems initiated." and as the water drained from the cyclops amid the sounds of pumps whirring and bulkheads releasing, he smiled as the Cyclops resurfaced and he said "ah that never gets old, hey wait a sec; I see a landmass there, I wonder what's going on?" Once the Cyclops was up and running again, Richard headed towards the island while scanning the area and when he got about two-hundred meters from the island he released the Seamoth and headed towards the island.

As he got onto the beach of the island he heard a ruckus and went to investigate, as he got closer he saw a fairly young looking woman getting attacked brutally and stabbed multiple times; he then sprinted over to the attacker and saw a familiar emblem on his wetsuit, it read Alterra to which Richard grew angry and ran right up to the man to which the man said "oh good evening sir, I see you work for Alterra too; could you help me retire this subject?" To which Richard just punched the man in the face and said "Let me see... How about NO!" And the man got all rude and said "You work for Alterra and it is your JOB to do this now help me and we will discipline you later for your actions." to which Richard just ripped the Alterra badge from his suit and said "I am no longer working for Alterra and you are in my way." He then stabbed the man in the arm and the leg and threw him into the water leaving the local fauna to finish him off. After that he approached the completely naked and wounded woman who cowered in front of him and begged for her life to be spared, "Please don't kill me! I don't want to die; I just want to see my daughters again! Please look at these images!" she then held her PDA up in a bloody hand to which Richard took it from her gently and saw images of Sapphire and Amythyst when they were younger to which he said "wait a minute, are you... Are you their mother? Nah, you can't be; she is dead, I saw the images myself, so who are you?" To which the young woman said "M... My name is Serena, Serena Triton; please, if you don't believe me scan me, you can; can't you?" Richard scanned her and her story checked out so he sighed and said "Okay then Serena, I will take you to your daughters but first I need to treat your injuries and yes you heard me right earlier, I no longer work for the Alterra corporation." After saying that Richard wrapped her up in a foil blanket to cover her up and carried her somewhere safe before building a habitat up and treating her wounds in the warmth and finished her treatment before making her a wetsuit and dressed her into it before carrying her to the Seamoth and placing her inside it before grabbing the Seaglide and escorted her to the cyclops. As they returned to the Cyclops, both Richard and Serena headed towards the base that supposedly held Amythyst and Sapphire, as they approached Richard saw a Seamoth approaching and as he zoomed in on the cockpit of the approaching submarine and saw a very upset looking Sapphire on an intercept course much to the point he used the emergency stop of his Cyclops when the Seamoth scraped against the cyclops' hull to which he sighed and turned everything off while releasing all the hatches so Sapphire could get to him "Finally I got back to you, Richard you asshole! Why did you seal us in that Habitat? No wait I... I understand now, it was our fault wasn't it? Oh by the way Amythyst has headed to the energy signal we detected near you she should be returning momentarily, erm by the way who is that woman wrapped up in a blanket behind you? Wait, is that my mo... Mother? I... Is that her? No it can't be, you died I heard them say they killed her." Richard sighed and said "It's the truth Sapphire, she IS your mother but she is in a critical condition, some bastard stabbed her brutally in the stomach and chest, I barely managed to stabilise her and now she is in a critical but stable condition, we need to get her to our habitat where I can properly administer treatment to her or she will die." with that Sapphire returned to her Seamoth and followed the Cyclops back to their home in the grassy plateaus with the low roar of a distant Reaper leviathan echoing through the ocean. While all of this was going on Amythyst found herself approaching the precursor canon and looked at it in shock and awe, this very weapon was what shot her ship the sunbeam out of the sky and ripped the hull of the Aurora apart "so you were the bastard that caused all of our problems?! I am going to destroy you!" to which a feminine voice said "Oh? And just who are you gonna destroy sweetie?" To which Amythyst looked up and saw this familiar woman standing in front of her with her hands on her hips and a little girl on her shoulder, and as the light brightened up Amythyst's eyes were fixated on a very curvaceous and buxom woman with beautiful green eyes and a fantastic figure to which she stammered "Wh...Who are you?" The woman just looked at her for a few minutes before sighing and said "You of all people should know this Amythyst Triton, My name is Crystal, the WIFE of Richard Scepton and this is his daughter Jade, oh and not forgetting this other fact, Both my daughter and I, and not forgetting Richard are the last precursors alive and this is OUR canon, however; it's original intent was not to kill or destroy, if I were to describe it's proper function I'd refer to it as a planet sized repulsion canon, its original idea was to repulse any ships away from this planet in an effort to reinforce quarantine, This planet has been infected with a disease called 'carar' and it is a very volatile illness that will kill slowly and painfully. When the disease manifested most of the precursors where wiped out and those who were immune like my family where sealed away in cryogenic chambers below the planetary surface and at the last moment one of our science team sabotaged the canon to turn it into a weapon of destruction and I am not going to let you destroy such a thing after I just fixed and redecorated it, of course though it has two firing modes now, my daughter and I see to that along with Richard's sisters Akémi, Kari and Sakura, speaking of which here they are now," no sooner had Crystal said that three girls that looked alike appeared out of nowhere and surrounded Amythyst to which Akémi said "Look here miss Triton, just because you and our brother are bonded together like Crystal is bonded to him does not mean we won't hurt you if you attempt to destroy the property of the precursors, in fact there is something you really need to know and you will learn it in time but right now you have someone waiting for you back at the habitat you came from; there you will find someone who really wants to see you, Crystal and Jade will be escorting you back there and will be staying with you, Richard, Sapphire and your MOTHER... so go now and do not doubt our words." With that Crystal found herself warped onto another Cyclops submarine with Crystal and Jade who set a course for their habitat.  
After hearing Crystal say that Amythyst looked at her and said "Wait are you really Richard's wife and daughter? Oh damn it, I guess that the dreams of my sister and I will be shattered now that you have come back into his life but that's okay, I'm just happy to have him as a friend…" Hearing this Crystal let out a disgruntled sigh and gave Amythyst a thump on the head before saying "Stop being such a wimp, if you want to be part of this family you have got to stop feeling sorry for yourself; just because I am here does NOT mean that you won't get chance with Richard, If Richard is the man I think he is then he will consent to this idea I have, do you know what a harem is?" Amythyst looked at Crystal and said "No I don't know what a harem is, could you please tell me?" to which Crystal smiled and said "A Harem is a group of women who marry the same man, Sultans and sheikhs have these, some guys have a new wife for every day of the week and if you really want to get with Richard then you and your sister have to accept that so what this means is that of you choose to be in a harem with your sister and I, that means that I will have to write up a wife rota and you know what, I don't mind sharing Richard with you so when we get to the habitat you can do what you want with him, Kiss him, hug him or even sleep with him, it is all fine with me oh and haven't you realised yet?" Amythyst looked at Crystal and said "Realised what?" Crystal sighed and shook her head before saying "Sit down, Shut up, listen to this and think," to which Crystal sat Amythyst down and got out her PDA before replaying the last thing Akémi said

 _"…you will learn it in time but right now you have someone waiting for you back at the habitat you came from; there you will find someone who really wants to see you, Crystal and Jade will be escorting you back there and will be staying with you, Richard, Sapphire and your MOTHER..."_

It then sank in, her mother who she thought was dead was actually alive, with that in mind Amythyst's eyes grew all watery and she began to cry before saying "Is it true? Is my mommy alive?"

To which Crystal said "yes sweetheart, your mother is alive, I can sense her; a part of my precursor abilities is sensing the life of other beings, no matter how feint it is but right now if you want to see your mother we need to get to the habitat so you need to get some rest while you think about your future with Richard and don't you worry, everything will be fine so sleep." After hearing that Amythyst got herself comfortable and fell asleep for the journey back to the habitat.

Five hours later at the Habitat…

As Richard continued the work on his future mother in-law he noticed how similar to her daughters she was, she had the same peircings as they did and the same personality that they had, This made him want to save her even more as it would make the girls happy and that was all he wanted to do, once they returned to the habitat Richard immediately rushed Serena into the infirmary and told Sapphire to go into the observation room while he operated on her mother who looked really young, in fact she looked about as old as Crystal and as he scanned her he found out that she had stopped aging at the age of twenty-five and kept her youthful good looks and full body, then he realised that she was another precursor, Serena Triton was one of his own people! So that meant that beyond a shadow of a doubt Amythyst and her sister were originally part precursor but the tampering of their genetic structure by the Alterra scientists made them FULL Precursor, he could finally start to revive the precursor civilisation and after he finished healing Serena he left her some clothes to get dressed into and brought her out of the general anaesthetic that she was under.

Finally she woke up to an empty room with a load of clothes next to her including some underwear with a note that read " _Greetings Serena Triton, since you are reading this then I'll assume that you have woken up from your sleep,_ _I have left you some clothes to wear and once you are dressed you can wander around the habitat freely, but don't worry; I haven't left you alone, I'm just in my workshop fixing a few things, if you want to talk then follow the signs, the code to my workshop is 1786, you can input that code on the panel next to the door, I will be waiting for you there along with Sapphire and Amythyst, that is if she gets here on time,_

 _Regards Richard Scepton"_

After reading that letter Serena felt her heart swell up with joy so she eagerly got dressed and began to look for the workshop where Richard was waiting. When she got there she put in the code and the door opened revealing just Sapphire and Richard but she didn't care; she was glad to have her life and her daughters back, as she looked around the room she locked her beautiful eyes on Richard and jumped at him arms open in a hug to which as soon as she made contact poor Richard was knocked against the wall as Serena smothered him with her ample chest by accident, to which Sapphire panicked and pulled her mother off Richard and said "hey mother you nearly killed him, please be careful in the future…" As her mother stared at her with the eyes of a mother who longed to hold her children again Sapphire started to weaken and before she knew it she was bawling like a little baby who had lost its mother and found her again, she then dashed into Serena and hugged her tightly, barely managing to get any words out to which Serena just gave a loving smile and said "There, there Sapphire, Mommy is here now and I will NEVER leave you or your sister again, I love you two so much that it hurt me when I thought I'd never see you again." With that even Serena started to sob and as both of the women cried as they embraced Richard gave a smile and looked to his left before saying "so Minori, have I done the right thing?" to which a young lady said "yes Richard you have and I am proud of you for doing so, as your spirit guide you have made me happy that I chose to guide you. It was you who reunited them beyond all hope, if Serena hadn't bumped into you, she would be dead and her daughters would be devastated after hearing that their mother was actually alive all this time." Richard nodded and got up to let the mother and daughter get reacquainted but no sooner had he left the workshop he found himself being jumped on by Jade and hugged tightly and forced back into the workshop with his daughter clinging onto his neck as Crystal and Amythyst walked in, looking around expectantly Amythyst searched for her mother to which as her eyes locked onto Richard's he pointed to his right and sure enough there was Serena and Sapphire sat there hugging each other. As he looked at them all he quietly counted backwards from three and as soon as he hit zero, Amythyst dived into the hug and both her sister and mother gave her a loving embrace to which they all started crying; witnessing this emotional reunion between mother and daughters, both Crystal and Jade began to cry as they witnessed this beautiful moment brought about by Richard who looked absolutely tired. About an hour later Richard recovered and went to go to bed, only to be stopped by Amythyst who said, "Oh by the way there was someone named Isajin Ryokuto who has crash landed on the planet and I hope he's friendly," to which Richard said "Isajin Ryokuto? He's an okay guy although a bit serious, don't worry he's friendly." With that Richard headed to the command centre of the base and activated a beacon and transmitted a message to Isajin Ryokuto "Isajin Ryokuto, this is Richard Scepton, If you are still alive head to the beacon; I need to discuss something with you."

Four hours later...

As he woke up Isajin Ryokuto looked around his crash site and heard the chiming of his Communications relay and as he approached it the relay said "Captain, a new message has arrived," and chimed as usual and he listened to the message before saying "Well I'll be damned Richard is still alive, I thought he was killed with the Aurora crash, I'm glad he isn't though; I needed him to communicate his report to me, now beacon, beacon ah yes there it is I will make my way to it." After saying that Isajin headed to the beacon but on his way there he felt a little uneasy, when he looked up he saw the sky darken in an eclipse to which he said in a low grumbling tone "Oh for god's sake of all the time to be without my flashlight; hey wait a second," as he rummaged around in his inventory he found his flashlight but it was broken so in a fit of anger he threw his destroyed flashlight across the path hitting a cave crawler and killing it to which he said "Oh damn it, no wait... hey that will teach you little four legged buggers a lesson; trying to sneak up on me." he looked around for a few minutes to admire the bio-luminescent beauty of the planet and sighed before saying "Well I guess I best try harder to find him." With that he took his knife and cut a few samples from the plants and used them to replenish his food and water, after about four hours of wandering around the floating island he saw a light coming from below the water so he decided to dive in and was met with a cyclops blowing it's horn at him to which he swam over and climbed on board to which the Cyclops announced "Isajin Ryokuto has boarded the Cyclops," to which a familiar face ran up to him and they gave each other a brotherly embrace "Hey Isajin what took you so long? I was getting old just waiting for you," to which Isajin laughed heartily and said "God damn it Richard, you never change and regarding your 'aging' I don't think so, given your biostructure I'd say that is an impossibility Mr precursor, so what are you doing on this godforsaken rock?" to which Richard said "Me? I'm getting married, to two other precursors; you've met them haven't you? Their names are Amythyst Triton and Sapphire Triton; I also learned that I have a wife by the name of Crystal and a six year old daughter by the name of Jade." To which Isajin said "My, my, my, you have been a busy boy haven't you? So what is your excuse for not communicating for all these years?" Richard frowned at Isajin, grabbed him by the ear and showed him the busted communications relay he took from his pod. "Do you mind not dragging me by my ear Richard, with your strength you will pull it off my head." Richard let out a sigh and released his ear before rolling his eyes and heading into the makeshift sleeping quarters where the girls were sleeping and said "Keep your mouth shut Isajin and don't wake up these women or we will be in for a world of hurt, they HATE being woke up prematurely so move quietly alright?" Isajin nodded at this as they headed into the main cockpit of the Cyclops and made some green tea. After a while Isajin looked at Richard and said "you have come a long way since we met last time Richard, don't get the wrong idea about what I'm saying but I can see that you have removed the Alterra patch from your uniform and not that I mind but what made you do that?"

Richard looked at Isajin and said "Come with me Ishi and I will show you." With that Richard escorted Isajin to the engine room where his future mother in law Serena was sat still shivering with shock and cold to which Isajin ran over to her and wrapped his coat around her shoulders before saying "I'm sorry if I surprised you ma'am but you seemed cold, are you okay?" Serena looked at Isajin and smiled sweetly before saying "Thank you mister Ryokuto, I appreciate the gesture; hey Richard how are my daughters, are they okay?" Richard looked at his PDA and said "Well aside from the fact that they are hungry, thirsty, tired and slightly injured, they will be fine and once we get back to our base we will need to have THAT discussion if you know what I mean." Serena nodded and with that Richard held his hand out to her to which she took hold of it and helped herself up with some difficulty to which Isajin wrapped her arm across his shoulders and supported her while she walked. Seeing this made Richard smile and with that he gestured to Isajin to tuck her into bed so she could recover, while they returned to the precursor canon that had detected a new aircraft approaching, as the alarm went off a propulsion volley was released in an effort to push the unknown ship away. Seeing that light, Isajin blinked and said "so that thing is operational? Good it needs to be so we can stop those Alterra fucks from coming here to colonise and pollute this beautiful place; does it have two firing modes like we discussed?" Richard nodded and drove the cyclops into the moonpool section of the base and climbed out before escorting him to the teleportation room and said "You know that theory we had about the way the canon operators moved from island to island undetected? Well that theory has been confirmed so let's head back to the main base shall we?" Isajin nodded and with that Richard pulled out a purple artefact and activated the lift up where he was met with his sisters, who had a mischievous look in their eyes and just as he blinked Richard found himself being swarmed by his sisters and getting dragged off into another room where Crystal, Jade, Amythyst and Sapphire were waiting to which he said "Can this not wait until I have debriefed..." before he could say another word he was silenced by Serena who said "there will be plenty of time for that but right now we need to have that discussion, we need to talk about you getting engaged to my two daughters." hearing those words uttered Richard sighed and said "Well I guess that IS more important than a few reports so when are we going to do this?" He then looked at Amythyst and Sapphire who had just recently got changed into their revealing wedding dresses, ran over to Richard, kissed him, and then embraced him tightly to which Serena said with motherly pride in her voice "Right now Mr Scepton..." With that he smiled and said "okay then." before hugging his blushing brides to be.

To be continued...

Author note:

Thank you for reading Subnautica Ghosts of the past this far, currently due to work and other things I am going to be taking a break from writing this fan fiction for a while; any suggestions that you may have for the next chapter feel free to PM me but with that comes ONE RULE which is:- No Lemons are to be requested, I said from Chapter 5 there will be No Lemons in this story, sorry about that :-\

Regards Vesper110


	10. Chapter 10 Marriage

Chapter 10: Marriage

Previously on Subnautica Ghosts of the past...

Richard nodded and drove the cyclops into the moonpool section of the base and climbed out before escorting him to the teleportation room and said "You know that theory we had about the way the canon operators moved from island to island undetected? Well that theory has been confirmed so let's head back to the main base shall we?" Isajin nodded and with that Richard pulled out a purple artefact and activated the lift up where he was met with his sisters, who had a mischievous look in their eyes and just as he blinked Richard found himself being swarmed by his sisters and getting dragged off into another room where Crystal, Jade, Amythyst and Sapphire were waiting to which he said "Can this not wait until I have debriefed..." before he could say another word he was silenced by Serena who said "there will be plenty of time for that but right now we need to have that discussion, we need to talk about you getting engaged to my two daughters." hearing those words uttered Richard sighed and said "Well I guess that IS more important than a few reports so when are we going to do this?" He then looked at Amythyst and Sapphire, who had just recently got changed into their revealing wedding dresses, ran over to Richard, kissed him, and then embraced him tightly to which Serena said with motherly pride in her voice "Right now Mr Scepton..." With that he smiled and said "okay then." before hugging his blushing brides to be.

As he finished hugging them Serena gestured him towards another room where he needed to get changed into his wedding tuxedo and as he drew close to the doorway Sapphire stopped him briefly and said "I hope that this isn't going to put you out but if possible, I'd like to spend more time with you before the big day, both my sister and I would like that so don't let our mother be too pushy with you and this wedding okay?" she then gave him a kiss and he kissed her back before smiling and resuming his walk to the changing room saying "I understand completely but this needs to be done because I do remember a few other things like this planet, it has been divided into four quadrants and we know these, we have the north quadrant, the south quadrant, the east quadrant and the west quadrant; the Scepton family were in charge of the north Quadrant and this canon that we are in is ours, as for the east Quadrant the Triton family ruled that quadrant and their gun has been disabled somehow, the Atashihito family controlled the south quadrant and the Ryokuto family controlled the west quadrant; it appears that the only active gun is the northern quadrant gun and is the same gun that brought down the Aurora, the Degassi and the Sunbeam, it's a shame about captain Avery Quinn he was just an innocent bystander in this and as far as I can tell the sunbeam was NOT a part of Alterra. one of the messages that I received informed me that he was just passing by as a travelling merchant and got roped into rescuing the Aurora crew only to be killed when his ship was destroyed, we shall leave him a memorial on this island as a mark of respect."  
Listening to Richard's explanation Sapphire asked him what the wedding had to do with what he said to which he explained that the wedding was already going to happen in an effort to unite the four Quadrants of the planet to which Akémi replied "we may call you little brother but in reality my sisters and I brought you into the Atashihito family as your family was the first to fall to the carar. You are the lone heir to the Northern quadrant, or rather you were before Jade was born, she is essentially next in line should you fall and if the worst comes to the worst we will protect your remaining family as was our pact that we made with your mother."  
As Akémi explained the pact Richard looked intrigued by this fact so after a few minutes of enquiring about the pact Akémi told him and he understood, after their talk Richard headed to the habitat nearby and went about adding new things to it when another message arrived "A new message has arrived" as the relay chimed Richard sighed and said "Now what," as he went to read the message Jade came rushing in looking frightened ad said "Daddy, the gun has started to pulsate again and when mommy checked the Array console it said an Alterra ship was coming into orbit a heavily modified juggernaut of an attack ship captained by... by, daddy it's captained by Serena's ex-husband, he's coming to take Amythyst and Sapphire away! Please don't let him do that!" after hearing his daughter panic he accessed the relay and the message was indeed sent from Serena's ex-husband. "Attention any survivors on the planet; this is Captain Robert Triton of the Alterra ship Celestine, I have tracked your transponder signals and will be picking you up soon please head to the rendezvous co-ordinates attached, Celestine out." hearing the message Richard grew all angry and looked at Jade saying "We need to shoot that bastard out of the sky, so let's go!" he then went out looking for Serena, Amythyst and Sapphire to tell them what is about to happen and when he got to them they had just activated the teleporter arrays and were about to jump to the other island until they heard Richard shout for them, to which Amythyst said in a nervous tone "Richard what is going on? why do you look so angry?" to which Richard said "unfortunately we have an unwelcome guest coming to our wedding, it's an Alterra ship captained by your father, the gun is already in standby mode and it will fire on my command so I will give you the option of firing a fatal or non-fatal volley at that ship," the three women looked at Richard and said in a unanimous vote "Fatal, destroy that ship, I read about it, that ship is an Alterra attack ship they are intent on destroying our facilities and they clearly want us back for more experimentation, destroy it!" Richard nodded but said "I will destroy that ship but there may be innocents on board just give me a few moments." He then ran to the gun control room and activated the targeting array before crafting a communications relay nearby and decided to send the Celestine a message "Attention Alterra ship Celestine, you are trespassing in restricted airspace, you must leave this area and never return or you will be destroyed, this message will not repeat, we are locked onto the hull of your ship so if I were you I'd fuck off right now! Message ends." with that he fired a warning volley across the bow of the ship and as planned Richard saw all of the life pods jettison on the target screen and saw that the warning shot damaged the Celestine communications antennae and part of the weapons array, still the stupid captain tried to get into the planetary atmosphere and no sooner had it done so the gun fired a second time hitting it dead centre and obliterating the Celestine to which Richard bowed his head in a moment of respect to the innocents who might not have made it off the ship before it's destruction.

Four hours later...

After that bitter moment of destroying the Celestine the wedding to Amythyst and Sapphire continued, the ceremony took a long time to complete and after the reception the new family paused to pay respects to the innocents that had fallen thanks to the greed of Alterra and the Torgaaljin corporation and they sat down planning a remembrance ceremony to which Richard said "This may be a time for rejoicing but it is also a time of reflecting, who'd have thought that almost seven years ago we forgot who we are and what we were, I didn't even anticipate that I was one of the remaining precursor who had been frozen in cryogenic sleep and was awoken and modified against my will by Alterra, I can assume we all know how that feels, but let's be honest shall we? Not everyone was bad at Alterra, we made a few friends with these people and we had good time, only to have our friends taken from us due to the greed of two corporations. those good people will be sorely missed and remembered so a toast to all the innocents that have fallen to the greed of Alterra and the Torgaalgin corp." they raised their glasses and had a minutes silence in remembrance and afterwards they perked up a bit to which Isajin said "On a more positive note, I am proud to announce..." he looked at the blushing Serena and held his hand out to her to which she shyly got up and embraced him to which Isajin continued, "I am proud to announce the engagement between Serena and myself, our wedding will take place in a few days once everything is sorted out on this planet, we still need to get rid of this illness carar to once again make this planet habitable for our people, and hey maybe a few humans when they realise that violence is never the way." hearing that the bonding families cheered and began to work on the cure for Carar but unbeknownst to them, one last battle was on the horizon as a fleet of Alterra ships was on approach to the planet.

Next Chapter... Finale

To be continued...


	11. Chapter 11 Finale

Chapter 11: Finale

After the marriage of Richard, Sapphire, Amythyst and the marriage of Serena to Isajin the extending family are starting to work on the cure for the carar, Richard has been going out collecting samples while Sapphire and Amythyst have been working on the other guns around planet 4546B trying to restore the defences on each of the hemispheres, the first gun they restored was the Ground to Air defence gun of the Triton family. It has taken three months to restore it and now it is operational once again "Well that's one gun down and two more to go little sis so, how are you holding up? It can't be easy working on a superweapon when you're pregnant," Sapphire looked at Amythyst and said "Well you can't talk sis because so are you," Amythyst laughed and said "Yeah you're right, so why don't we head back home to Richard?" With that they both returned to the northern territory to a very grave faced Richard to which Amythyst said "Sweetheart, why are you so worried? Is there something you know?" to which Richard said, "Yes well I have good news and bad news, the good news is that Alterra is ten years away but the bad news is that they have decided to abandon their non-lethal approach, but that's not the worst of it, they have found a way to evade our system since the Celestine incident, basically we are screwed unless we get all of our planetary defences online and upgraded; Jade and Crystal are working on that now but it is taking them a while, with the carar research and the weapon upgrades in progress this will take us a long time so what I am saying is that the Alterra people are coming and we have nothing we can do to stop them as of yet so it's looking grim." hearing those words from Richard Amythyst's heart sank to which she said "you mean there may be a chance that our baby won't make it? No I don't want that! Please we need to do something!" Looking at Amythyst's hysterics Richard raised an eyebrow and said "Calm down Amythyst my dear, did I not just say that it would take ten years for the Alterra ships to get here? While you were sleeping I used the gun to target parts of the Ariadne arm phasegate that is how I bought us some time but still... we need to get all planetary defences online and get rid of the carar otherwise we won't stand a chance against them, so all this tells me is that humans never ever got rid of their destructive natures, those years of pacifism where but an illusion they lied and as a result we face a new threat from humans in control of stolen precursor technology so no matter what we must do everything to restore our defences! Unfortunately due to your pregnancies you can't do any more with the superweapons so I am going to bring them online myself; you girls just take it easy because I want no harm to come to any of you." Richard then hugged them both and escorted them to the habitat and put them to bed so they could rest, after Amythyst and Sapphire where comfortable, Richard headed to the south most quadrant where the Atashihito gun lay in ruins to which Richard just cursed and swore for a few minutes before saying "Well this is gonna take me a long time to rebuild and repair, shit! Well no matter I need to get on with the work." With those words Richard started to rebuild the gun from the base up and after another three months the gun was still half done, during those three months Richard stayed in touch with Sapphire and Amythyst who seemed to be very excited at the prospect of being mothers and very soon, Richard often travelled to visit them via the precursor teleport network and just as he was about to return back to working on the Atashihito gun he was stopped by Akémi and her sisters who said "Richard you have done enough on the gun, but now you need to spend time with Amythyst and Sapphire as they are six months pregnant with your children; don't worry little brother we can fix our gun faster since there are three of us now you take it easy and work on that carar cure." With that Richard did as he was told and said "okay big sister I will do what you ask but please, be quick about it." After that was said Akémi nodded her head and headed through the teleport network to fix their superweapon.

2 months later

Just as the Atashihito sisters finished fixing their gun they got a transmission from an unknown source and once their Array was active they searched for the source of the signal and to their surprise it came from deep within the Lost River zone as they triangulated the position it became clear; the transmission was coming from their secondary research facility, a place that until now seemed destroyed riding on the hope that the facility was somehow fixed up they went and investigated it and what they got there surprised them, as soon as they entered the main control room they found a beautiful young lady at the communications relay and what made things even more surprising that it was actually Richard's mother Celeste, a precursor beauty known from around planet 4546B and she was alive and well, as they stared at her she giggled and said "judging from your reaction I can tell you didn't expect to see me, especially when I supposedly died from the carar, so how am I alive you ask? It's simple really, I didn't really die; yes I was hit pretty hard by the carar but through my determination to see my beloved son again I pulled through, injected myself with the cure and rested for several years hidden away from those hostile humans all those years ago when they took my son away from me and turned him into a husk of his former self and I want revenge, please tell me you saved my son from them Akémi." Akémi bowed to her and said "yes Lady Celeste, Richard is fine and he's going to be a daddy again, he already has one daughter who is five years old and he has two more children on the way." Celeste looked at Akémi with hope in her eyes and said "for the first time in a long existence I feel like we will once again have links off world but to do that we need to destroy this carar and I know from looking at our main array that three of the four planetary defence guns are offline and that leaves us 75% defended from any hostile attack. We need the last gun online as soon as possible if we are to stand a chance against the invading human forces." Akémi looked at Celeste and said "so you know about that already huh?" to which Celeste said "why yes my dear I do, because it's me who has invited them here to be destroyed! No one will EVER hurt us again once we take out those foul, filthy humans!" the sudden burst of rage from Lady Celeste surprised Akémi who tried to reason with her saying "Please Lady Celeste, dampen your ire! Not all humans are bad I swear, if we show them the error of their ways I'm sure they will understand!" Lady Celeste sighed a little bit before saying "You know Akémi, I thought you were smarter than this; your love for humanity has blinded you to just how evil they can be but don't worry, I won't hurt you because I understand why you are hesitant to engage humans but you are still going against the precursors by saying that and I will have to lock you away with the sea emperor, he needs the company so off you go." With that Lady Celeste warped Akémi to the Sea emperor holding cell and began her planning for the revenge of the precursors.

While she was locked away Akémi felt sad, Lady Celeste had lost her mind; she was so overtaken with grief and hatred for humanity that she turned on her own kind just to eliminate humanity in one full attack, she couldn't stand it so as a result she made an escape from the sea emperor's holding cell and tried to communicate with Richard, "Come on Richard I know you can hear me so answer!" Richard heard Akémi and decided to respond and said "So Akémi what is the hold up and where are you? Your sisters Sakura and Kari are worried about you so what's the holdup?" to which Akémi said "The array is online again but we have a new problem, your mother has gone mad and is planning a large scale attack on humanity! Somehow she survived the carar and has been working on revenge I tried to talk her out of it but she locked me away in the sea emperor's prison, thankfully the sea emperor helped me out so I'm coming back to help you but it will take me a while to get there, I don't have the energy left to teleport or talk any longer so I will meet you on the floating island where your gun is" and with that Akémi fell silent, to which Richard said "so my mother IS alive and gone off her rocker? I guess that is what happens to you when you feign your death; Sapphire, Amythyst, we have to get that last gun operational and synchronise the facilities with each other and once that's done we will lock my mental mother out of the system."

After that Richard headed to the Ryokuto gun with Kari, Sakura Crystal and Isajin to repair it but due to its own recovery system the Ryokuto gun was already mostly repaired so it just took a day to fix it. Once he repaired the final interface Richard began the synchronisation process and headed home to a pair of screaming women. "Richard the babies are coming! Please help us!" A pain-stricken Amythyst said to which Richard said in a panic "What do I do? What do I do!" seeing Richard panic Sapphire took a deep breath and bared the labour pains just long enough to say "There is no need to panic Richard you, ah! You just need to hold our hands and let our mother help us bring our children into the world." Then the pain took over as Richard held both of their hands, their labour lasted for days and when it was all over a very tired Richard was sat down holding his two daughters Aura and Argentine to which Serena said "oh they are two beautiful babies! I'm so happy to be a grandmother!" she then hugged her two tired daughters and said "by the way why have you named one of your newest daughters after that awful ship?" To which Richard said "Didn't you hear the names properly? Their names are Aura and Argentine! One is the Latin name for gold and the other is the Latin name for silver!" Serena blushed and said "Oh my mistake, I guess MY pregnancy hormones are messing with my head, I'm sorry Richard." After Serena said that Richard sighed and said "Oh it's no problem Serena… wait, you are pregnant?!" to which Serena nodded and said "Yes Richard I am pregnant and I know the gender of the bayby that I am carrying, he is a boy and his name is gonna be Onyx, isn't that fantastic?" after she said that Serena skipped off singing a very happy song to which Isajin looked up and smiled saying "I'm happy to be a father for the first time but I want my son to live in a world without carar and without any threats from Alterra so let's sort this out and get the carar out of the way." With those words Isajin went after Serena making sure that she was okay to which a very Tired Sapphire said "so we are getting a little brother? I'm so happy I could cry!" And right on cue that is what she did. While all of this was going on, Lady Celestine was in the secondary research facility refining the carar to unleash it on humans so she could completely eliminate them from existence and she wasn't going to let anybody get in her way; not even her own son.

Ten years later….

Ten years have passed since Richard and his new family began to prepare defences from the human incursion by Alterra and its subsidiaries, all four of the guns were operational and upgraded, unfortunately during those ten years, Alterra made advancements of their own, the guns could not locate them; Alterra had breached the airspace of planet 4546B and had taken up geosynchronous orbit around the planet it was a fleet of eight ships with highly destructive weaponry at its disposal, seeing this Richard switched the canon to manual fire and aimed right at the main ship before saying "Attention Alterra ships, you are trespassing in restricted airspace, I am locked onto your main ship and demand that you leave this place immediately, we are a peaceful race and just want to rebuild our existence so please! Don't make me shoot at you, I've seen enough death and destruction to last me a thousand lifetimes! Don't add to that destruction!" hearing Richard's plea the captain of the main ship sneered and said "If that's the case you hippy, step aside and let us take this planet without resistance!" Richard started to get annoyed and said "you do not realise what danger you are in, we really need you to get out of here as the planetary quarantine has not been lifted yet so get your ships out of here or die!" After that sentence Richard heard a familiar voice saying "Richard my dear child, when did you become so pathetic? You need to destroy these interlopers with your whole heart! They alone reduced us to a bunch of simpering weaklings and experimented on us! So if you don't do anything then I will!" hearing what was said Richard heard Akémi say "Lady Celeste please! Not all humans are bad! Please don't infect them with the virus, please!" Akémi's pleas were falling on deaf ears so as a result she said "Very well Lady Celestine, If you won't come to your senses then I will force you to!" There was the sound of a struggle then a very loud piercing scream to which Richard heard Akémi say "Richard, she has fatally wounded me little brother, I… I can't…" then there was the sound of a thud over the communications line as Akémi fell down to the floor followed by the psychotic laughter of Lady Celestine making Richard roar out in anger he then started the teleport but before he got through he saw something fire at the Alterra ships followed by agonised screams of men, women and children from all of the Alterra ships to which Richard cried out in despair and anger "What have you done you psychopathic bitch?!" to which Lady Celestine said "How dare you talk to your mother that way? The woman who brought you into the world! The one who fed and clothed you, all the way through the first few years of your ungrateful life!" growing tired of his mother's rant Richard said "You are NOT my mother! She died when I was young; my mother was a kind woman who wouldn't hurt a fly! She was the kind of woman who, if she saw an animal, human or otherwise that was suffering she would heal them and if that failed she would bury them when they died after making sure that their last few moments of life were something special! YOU are a SICK and TWISTED BITCH! Who has lost her mind enough to kill humans with the disease we cured!" he then tried to communicate with the other ships and they retreated to a safe distance, all but one ship that was piloting his ship into the planet in an effort to destroy it and with the guns useless the only option was to get onto the ship and stop it from crashing into the planet face so using his abilities Richard warped onto the ship and took out the people who attacked him especially the ones suffering from carar. When he finally got to the ship's drive core he fought his way past the sentries and made his way to the drive room where he killed the ship's captain and pulled the crashing ship up out of its crash and did a gravity slingshot around the planet as the ship got tagged by the gun from the southern territory destroying its engines and forcing it to crash into a nearby planetoid Richard then looked around the devastated drive room and made his way to the drive core deactivating it and stranding himself on the ship to which a heavily modified PRAWN suit made its way to him with Jade at its controls, as the PRAWN suit approached Richard's PDA spoke up and informed him that he was infected with a new strain of carar and told him that he had a few days left until he died and seeing his first child approach him made his decision all the more painful, just as Jade got close to him Richard smiled and said "Jade my dear I am sorry but I cannot come home," hearing these words stopped jade in her tracks and she said "But wh..Why papa? Why can't you come home?" to which Richard said "I'm sorry but I have been infected by a new strain of Carar and it is one that will kill me in three days so I am staying here now you must leave," Jade started to cry and ran over to him in the prawn suit and begged him to not give up to which he said "I'm sorry but go! Please don't make this harder than it already is, I have led a relatively good life, I have three beautiful daughters three beautiful wives and one wonderful friend, not forgetting three loving big sisters so it isn't all bad, all of you are my most treasured memories so I have no regrets." He then overridden the PRAWN suit with his PDA and forced it out of the airlock and piloted it back to planet 4546B with his sobbing, heartbroken daughter vainly trying to override the autopilot and once he was sure she was out of harm's way he sealed the drive core and detonated the core with him still inside it killing him instantly as his daughter cried out in despair as the rest bowed their head in respect for their fallen comrade.

The end…

Alright people the next chapter will be the last one for this story so I thank you all for reading the story this far and I hope you enjoyed it, sorry it couldn't end on a happier note.

The next chapter is the aftermath of our main protagonists sacrifice so what awaits us in the next chapter? Stay tuned and happy reading!

Regards

Vesper110


	12. Chapter 12 Epilogue

Chapter 12: Epilogue

Everything must end, this is all too true; the precursors knew this and so did I, My father was taken from me by the madness of one person; one rogue precursor who let her heart twist into something evil, her name was Celeste Scepton; the mother of my father Richard Scepton who died due to her madness, My name is Jade Scepton, the last hope for the Scepton Family; along with my sisters Aura and Argentine we want to end this fight between human and precursor once and for all.

Previously on Subnautica: Ghosts of the past…

"But wh..Why papa? Why can't you come home?" to which Richard said "I'm sorry but I have been infected by a new strain of Carar and it is one that will kill me in three days so I am staying here now you must leave," Jade started to cry and ran over to him in the prawn suit and begged him to not give up to which he said "I'm sorry but go! Please don't make this harder than it already is, I have led a relatively good life, I have three beautiful daughters three beautiful wives and one wonderful friend, not forgetting three loving big sisters so it isn't all bad all of you are my most treasured memories so I have no regrets." He then overridden the PRAWN suit with his PDA and forced it out of the airlock and piloted it back to planet 4546B with his sobbing, heartbroken daughter vainly trying to override the autopilot and once he was sure she was out of harm's way he sealed the drive core and detonated the core with him still inside it killing him instantly as his daughter cried out in despair as the rest bowed their head in respect for their fallen comrade.

As Jade returned to the planet heartbroken she swore to avenge her father's death by capturing the culprit and locking her away permanently so she didn't harm anyone else, as she returned to the Scepton gun she saw her mother Crystal and her second mother figures, Sapphire and Amythyst crying bitterly over Richard's death to which Crystal said in tears "That's it! I've had it, this is unacceptable! Celeste must die for her crimes against us and I don't care if she is family! That bitch is going down!" Seeing how worked up her mother was Jade embraced her with tears in her eyes and said "No mother, you mustn't! Two wrongs don't make a right, she will be arrested and brought to justice, that much is certain," to which a hysterical Crystal said "Brought to justice?! NO I WANT HER HEAD! She took Richard from us for what? Some small grudge against humanity?! No way am I letting her get away with this." Still trying to get through to Crystal Jade said "Look mother, I am just as upset as you are, I only got to spend ten years of my life with him and I wanted more! But that was taken from me and so will you if you go in there unprepared, and to make things worse, the Alterra ships that escaped are coming back to destroy us! We have to stop them!" while all of this was going on the attack ships of Alterra returned with a vengeance as they opened fire on the guns, luckily the guns were made up of an alloy that stopped them from being destroyed by conventional weapons. After an hour of barrages from the attacking ships it all went quiet and one of the ship commanders spoke up "Attention Precursors, this is commander Radford of the Alterra attack ship Gauss, as you can tell our weapons have no effect on you ad as a result we are going to send a small force down to take the guns from you, your actions committed by using a biological weapon cannot and will not be ignored lay down your arms and await restraint, you will pay for your crimes against Alterra." Desperate to prevent the arrest of her family Jade replied to them and said "Please captain Radford hear me out! My name is Jade Scepton and we did not send that biological weapon to your ship, it was a rogue precursor by the name of Celeste my father, Richard Scepton Sacrificed himself to prevent the Virus from travelling off world in an effort to safe you people. Please if you find his PDA I am sure it will tell you all you need to know!" Sadly the captain of the Gauss ignored her pleas and sent a small attack group to the planet surface but to her surprise someone else heard her and spoke up,

"This is Captain Alba of the Alterra ship new hope, we have received your message Jade and are ready to assist you, captain Radford; stand down from your attack or you will find yourself relived of your command by force and your ship boarded, Jade Scepton I am trusting that you will not attack my people as they approach the crash site of the Dagenham?" Jade replied and said "Send me the transponder signal of your ship Captain Alba and I will enter you as an authorised ship in the array," The communication was quiet for a few moments then the captain spoke up and said "Before we do that, as an act of good faith I shall send you the blueprints of the attack ships so you can dispatch them with ease ut please just disable their weapons and drive systems." Captain Alba did this and the plans were uploaded to Jade's PDA followed by the transponder signal of the ship New Hope.

After the signal was put in the "New Hope" Approached the crash site of the Dagenham and retrieved the PDA of the now deceased Richard and sent a message to Jade "Miss Scepton, I have retrieved your father's PDA and I am bringing it to you personally, does my ship have permission to make planetfall?" to which Jade said "Yes Captain Alba but just make sure the attack ships don't interfere," Captain Alba okayed that and sent a message to his ship and no sooner had he done that the New hope opened fire on the guns of the Gauss while the Ground to air defence systems of all four of the nobles of planet 4546B opened fire on the remaining six disabling their drives and their guns as the New Hope made planetfall and stopped about five miles in the air as a dropship flew in with captain Alba on board.

As the dropship landed on the intended sunbeam landing spot A young man looking no older than sixteen stepped out of the ship holding Richard's PDA up above his head and got down on the floor so Jade could approach and when she got there she helped him up and said "you are not a prisoner, you are a guest Captain Alba," to which Captain Alba said "Just call me William or Bill, I never was one for rank and formalities; now here is the PDA I acquired, I hope you don't mind but I took a look at the message that was left for you so shall I play it?" to which Jade just nodded as Bill activated the video recording.

" _to my dear family, if you are watching this then it means that I have died in an effort to protect the other planets from carar, this was recorded after I learned of my Mother's intent to harm, if anyone at Alterra is watching this with my family then I thank you for accepting responsibility for your past actions and hope that you will work with my family to forge a true path of pacifism. In order to do this, you must eliminate Lady Celeste in any way possible that takes her out of the equation but I cannot stress this enough, only kill her if it is the last resort; I love my family and I feel nothing but regret for the lives lost as a result of the actions of the precursors, this includes the destruction of the Degassi and the subsequent destructions of the Aurora and of the Sunbeam, I also feel the sting of regret for the actions my mother took for revenge, my family had nothing to do with this so please spare them. The one person that must be stopped is my mother and my mother alone. I hope this message will set us off on a new path, regards Richard Scepton. Message ends_ "

As the screen faded Jade started to cry as Bill comforted her and said "Well this tells me everything that I need to know, as of this moment this is an Alterra related matter and there will be NO aggression so Captain Radford if you wouldn't mind, clear off from this planet and take your attack dos with you! This is an executive order from Alterra Corp, end of discussion." With that Bill returned to his ship and resumed orbit of the planet while staying in contact with Jade, much to the displeasure of Captain Radford as his ship was taken away by the non-aggressive Alterra ships along with his immobilised attack fleet while Captain Alba started his duties. After an hour of preparation Captain Alba returned to the planet and started to speak with Jade on a less formal note and they even started to laugh and joke with each other, eventually Jade and Bill bonded and became good friends as he cleared up every question that was sent his way and finally once all the preparations were complete they began their attack against Celeste.

After a few days an Alterra team lead by Bill had linked up with The Vespertillio corporation team headed by Isajin Ryokuto and Serena, who had linked up with the team led by Jade in one final assault against a common enemy in an effort to undo the damage done to both Alterra and the precursors by Celeste, they made their way to the lost river base and entered it only to find it destroyed once more, when she saw this Jade exited the Cyclops and entered the facility to download all the data she could and once that was done, she stumbled upon a pre-recorded message that disclosed the place that Lady Celeste had retreated to, all she could make out was that the place she retreated to was in a very hot place and as soon as she downloaded the data a signal came up on her PDA and it read Inactive lava zone. With that they headed to the inactive lava zone and began to track Celeste down, After an hour they finally found her and as she tried to escape Akémi, Sakura and Kari stopped her escape and restrained her to which Crystal brutally attacked her and beat her to within an inch of her life before knocking her unconscious and restraining her.

Hours later they locked Celeste away in a high security prison on planet 4546B and inhibited her abilities by injecting her with multiple strains of non-lethal carar, then making sure she never escaped to which Crystal said "I really wish we could kill her but, that is not what Richard would have wanted so I guess she has been locked away for good now?" to which Jade said "Yes mother she has been locked away for good and she will never escape, because if she does she will die! I will make sure of it!" with those words Jade and the teams lead by Alterra and Isajin worked on a cure for the new strain of carar that Celeste had created and it was completed with the help of Altera and the Vespertillio corp before being released galaxy wide while Alterra and the Vespertillio corp rebuilt the phasegate network across the Ariadne arm galaxy, then an agreement was made between Alterra, the precursors and the Vespertillio corp to ensure fair-trade and transport between galaxies far and wide.

6 years later…

After the incident on planet 4546B was rectified, Jade and Bill got married and had a son, when he was born they named him Richard, after his grandfather who against all odds brought about a new period of peace between humanity and the precursors with his own self-sacrifice, ensuring a bright future for all races human or otherwise, that was his legacy and now the baton has passed to a new guide and her name is Jade Alba-Scepton.

End


End file.
